Zoological kiociety. 417 



characters decisive against the musteline, and in favour of the canine 

 group. And subsequently Mr. Waterhouse kindly pointed out to me, 

 in that department of the Museum which is entrusted to his care, a 

 fossil cranium from Brazil, w^hich, from being found associated with 

 jaws evidently belonging to that species, is most probably referable 

 to the same, and in this I found that all the characters of the base 

 of the cranium were precisely those of the Dogs. 



Although I have not had sufficient opportunities to enable me to 

 offer anything original on the other parts of the anatomy of the 

 Carnivora as bearing upon their classification, perhaps I may be al- 

 lowed to mention a few known circumstances, which, as they co-exist 

 (so far as is yet known) with the characters which I have pointed 

 out in the three families Ursidce, Felicia, and Canidce, may serve to 

 indicate that the importance I have assigned to those characters is 

 not altogether undeserved. The presence or absence, and the struc- 

 ture of the caecum have frequently been made use of in determining 

 the limits of groups ; and I need but to remind my readers, that in 

 the Weasels, as well as in the Bears and the subursine animals, the 

 caecum is wanting, and there is little or no distinction between small 

 and large intestine ; also that it is in the Cats, in the Hyaena, and the 

 Viverrine section, that this separation is well-marked, and a small 

 or but moderate-sized caecum is appended. In the Dog, the large 

 intestine is but very little larger than the small intestine, but the 

 separation is marked by a constriction, and by the addition of a 

 caecum remarkable for the curious manner in which it is several 

 times folded upon itself. There are two other portions of the organi- 

 zation to which I will also allude, as affording characters serving to 

 distinguish the three leading families ; and in so doing I take the 

 facts as I find them in the ' Lecons d' Anatomic Compar^e,' stated 

 simply, and evidently without any intention of assigning to them 

 any zoological importance. First, with regard to the accessory 

 glands connected with the generative organs of the male : the 

 vesiculae seminales are wanting throughout the order, unless it be 

 in the Coati-mondi, which Cuvier mentions among the animals pos- 

 sessing them : this solitarj'^ exception, if so it be, seems to require 

 confirmation ; unfortunately the only two Coati-mondis it ever fell to 

 ray lot to examine were both young females. The prostate is spoken 

 of as forming in the Bear, and in the Otter, the Weasel and other 

 " vermiformes," only a layer more or less thick around the com- 

 mencement of the urethra, while in the Ichneumon, the Cats, the 

 Dogs, tl)e Hyaena, and the Civets, it is salient, differing however in 

 size and the number of its lobes ; and Cowper's glands are wanting 

 in the Bear, the Racoon, the Otter, and other " vermiformes," and 

 also in the Dogs, but exist in the Ichneumon, the Civet, the Hyaena, 

 and in the Cats. 



The larynx is an organ whose differences of structure are very 

 likely to afford useful zoological characters when studied with that 

 view. Cuvier, after describing the structure it presents in the Dogs, 

 where the most striking characters seem to be the considerable 

 development of the cuneiform cartilages, their S-like shape, and 



Ann. &; Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 2. Vol. iii. 27 



