222 Mr. R. I. Pocock on the 
XXIT.—On the Hyoidean Apparatus of the Lion (F. leo) and 
Related Species of Felide. By R. I. Pocock, F.R.S., 
Superintendent of the Zoological Society’s Gardens *. 
In typical members of the Felidz the suspensorium (fig. 2, A), 
or anterior cornu, of the hyoid consists of four elements—the 
ceratohyal, epilyal and stylohyal (which are ossified in the 
adult), and the tympanohyal (which generally, if not always, 
remains cartilaginous through life up to its point of attach- 
ment with the bulla) ft. But it is well known that the hyoid 
apparatus of some of the larger species of Felide—JF. leo and 
F. tigris, for example—differs from that of the majority of 
species in the defective ossification of parts of the suspen- 
sorium, so that the larynx, clamped though it be by the 
basihyal and thyrohyals, is not held close up to the base of 
the skull by a comparatively short series of contiguous and 
jointed bones, but is imbedded in the muscles of the throat, 
and is susceptible of much greater range of movement than 
is ordinarily the case. The missing portion of the suspen- 
sorium is represented by a long and slender “ ligament,” the 
course of which it is by no means always easy to follow 
through the muscles it traverses, 
Blainville’s figures (Ostéogr. Atlas, Felis, pl. xi.) of the 
hyoid in F. leo, F. tigris, and F. pardus, the only species 
known up to the present time to possess the modification of 
the suspensorium above described, show that the lower end 
of the suspensorium is represented by the ceratohyal and the 
upper by a styloid process which is undivided in F. pardus, 
but divided into a proximal cartilaginous portion, and a distal 
osseous portion in #. leo and F. tagris. The ligament, more- 
over, carries one bead-like ossicle in /. leo and #. pardus and 
two in F, tigris. Thus, the suspensorium in the lion, tiger, 
and leopard consists of two main bones instead of three, the 
ligament with the ossicles taking the place of the epihyal. 
But, according to Blainville (Ostéogr. vol. 11., Fels, p. 32), 
* The facts recorded in this paper are based upon dissections made in 
the Society's Prosectorium. 
+ Flower applied the term “ tympanohyal” to the ossicle of the hyoid 
which is embedded in the styloid foramen of the skull. Mivart (‘The 
Cat,’ pp. 77-78) extended the term to include the longish cartilage de- 
pending from that bone. In this paper, without prejudice, I follow 
Mivart’s terminology, leaving open the questiun as to whether or not 
this cartilage is a separate element from the tympanohyal. It may 
belong to the stylohyal. At all events, before ossification of the latter 
sets in, it appears to form with the tympanohyal a continuous cartila- 
ginous rod, which, for convenience, I speak of as the styloid process. 
