Hyoidean Apparatus of the Lion &e. 227 
leopard, and tiger. The great length, indeed, of the upper 
cartilaginous element in the young jaguar and its mode of 
articulation with the second bony element suggest that it 
is the homologue of the partly cartilaginous, partly ossified 
upper element—that is to say, of the tympanohyal cartilage 
and of the stylohyoid bone—in the cheetah, leopard, and 
tiger. In that case, the second element in the jaguar corre- 
sponds to the epihyal of the cheetah, and the comparatively 
short ligament is interposed between the epihyal and the 
eeratohyal, and does not replace the epihyal. 
From the data available it does not appear to me that this 
point can be settled; but I incline to the opinion that that 
interpretation is correct, and that Blainville, although wrong 
in stating that the ligament is absent in the jaguar, was 
right in saying that the suspensorium in that animal consists 
of the same bony elements—namely, the stylohyal, epihyal, 
and ceratohyal—as in the normally constructed hyoids of 
Felide. If this be so of the five species—namely, the lion, 
tiger, leopard, ounce, and jaguar—which have an elastic 
ligament in the hyoidean suspensorium, the jaguar is the 
most primitive in retaining the three bony suspensorial 
elements in the hyoid, and at the same time shows the first 
step in the modification of the hyoid to have been the inter- 
position of an elongated elastic ligament between the cerato- 
hyal and the epihyal, and the second step, as illustrated in the 
leopard, lion, and tiger, to have been the suppression of the 
epihyal element. ‘The obvious suggestion here arises that 
the bony nodule, or nodules, sometimes present near the 
upper end of the ligament in these three species may be the 
remnant of the epihyal. 
Whichever of the two above-suggested interpretations 
proves ultimately to be correct, the important fact remains 
that in the lion, tiger, leopard, ounce, and jaguar there is a 
longish or very long elastic ligament interposed between the 
ceratohyal and the upper element of the hyoidean suspen- 
sorium, 
All the other species of the Felide that I have examined, 
including F’. concolor, pardalis, wiedii, geoffroyt, jaguarondi, 
pajeros, nebulosa, viverrina, bengalensis, serval, aurata, chaus, 
ocreata, nigripes, sylvestris, caracal, lynx, rufa, and Aci- 
nonyx (Cynelurus) jubatus, bear out the observations of 
others, that there is no long elastic ligament in the suspen- 
sorium in any form but the five enumerated above. 
In his paper on the anatomy of the cheetah (Acinonyx 
jubatus) Owen (Tr. Zool. Soc. i. p. 129, 1834) wrote as 
follows :—‘“‘ In their internal structure the differences of the 
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