•2(^C^ ]Mr. K. I. Pocoek on the 



foramen, moreover, is cut off from the periotic by bone, a 

 short straifjht suture ah)nc iiulicatiii<:; its orifi;inal contiiniity 

 with the space l)et\veeu the periotic and the ))asispheiioid. 



In her paper upon Nandinia Miss Albertina Carlsson 

 marks the carotid proove as running betwecu the autero- 

 iiitcrnal portion of the tympanic bone and the basioccipital. 

 This must, I think, be a mistaken inference. At all events, 

 tlic artery did not take that course in the fresh example of 

 Nandinia that I examined (see Zool. Jahrb. Svst. xiii. 

 pp. 509-5:28, pi. xxxvi. fig. 1, 1900). 



It may •)e added that there is no partition, either carti- 

 laginous, membranons, or osseous, in the bulla of Nandinia. 

 When the tympanic membrane is cut away, a probe can 

 be passed in the uncleaned skull through theexternal auditory 

 meatus to the posterior wall of the cartilaginous portion of 

 tiie bulla. 



In the Felida?, in conformity with the homogeneity of the 

 family, the carotid canal is much less variable than in the 

 Vivcrridae'^. The canal is almost always apparent as a short 

 shallow groove notching the tympanic bulla close to the 

 basioccipital, and not infrequently set so far back that it 

 lies within the depression which leads to the foramen lacerum 

 posticuni. Occasionally, however, the notch or groove lies 

 just in front of that depression, as in a skull of Felis jagua- 

 rondi 1 possess ; but it is never set nearly so far forward as 

 the middle of the inner surface of the bulla. Only quite 

 exceptionally, and as an individual peculiarity, is the notch 

 converted into a bony tube, with a rounded orifice, by the 

 extension and fusion of its edges, so that the basioccipital 

 forms no part of the carotid canal. This is the case on one 

 side, but not on the other, in a skull of Felis uncia, in which 

 the posterior orifice of the canal is, as in Mungos, a round 

 hole in the bulla. In this skull, as in that of F.jayuarondi, 

 the canal is placed in front oit\\e foramen lacerum posticum. 



In all cases the canal descends f to the edge of the con- 

 cealed iuturned portion of the tympanic above the periotic, 

 where it ceases. From that point the artery apparently 

 runs along the periotic close to the basioccipital and the 

 adjacent portion of the tympanic, and in some cases this 

 portion of the tympanic is longitudinally grooved J ; but I 



* In this paper the significance applied to the term Viverridae by 

 Mivart and Flower is, without prejudice, adopted. 



t From the point of view of the spectator, when the skull is examined 

 with its base u})perinost. 



. t I have not, however, traced the course of the artery within the 

 bulla of any of the Felidie. 



