112 THE ARTISTIC ANATOMY OF ANIMALS 



case the lower jaw is still posterior ; and, for this reason, we 

 see in adopting this position some inconveniences from a 

 didactic point of view. Accordingly, we will suppose the 

 head brought a little nearer to the horizontal, and this, from 

 the imaginative point of view, has certainly an advantage 

 which we cannot afford to neglect when addressing artists. 



Indeed, let us suppose that to a clay model of a human 

 head we wish to give the aspect of the head of a quadruped. 

 We should elevate the occiput ; and then, taking hold of the 

 lower part of the face, we should lengthen it, not in a direction 

 precisely antero-posterior, but downwards and forwards. It 

 is obviously this latter procedure which, on the other 

 hand, is carried out when a person wishes to give to his 

 own face some resemblance to the muzzle of a quadruped. 



It is true that, in the position we have adopted, the face 

 is directed obliquely downwards and forwards, and that there 

 may result a certain confusion in describing the position 

 of its different parts. On this account, with the object 

 of not making complications, we purpose, for the present, 

 to substitute, for example, for the term 'antero-superior ' 

 — which when speaking of the position of the forehead and 

 nose would be more exact — the term ' anterior,' which is 

 sufficiently comprehensible. The mouth will be, for the 

 same reason, referred to as being situated at the inferior 

 part of the face, and not the antero-inferior. 



The Skull, — The elevation of the cranial region becomes 

 especially appreciable when we examine the occipital 

 bone. Before verifying this fact, it is not superfluous to 

 recall the general arrangement which this bone presents in 

 the human skull. A portion of the occipital bone occupies 

 the base of the skull ; but this base in man is horizontal ; to 

 this region succeeds the shell-shaped portion of the occipital 

 bone, which, passing vertically upwards, forms with the 

 preceding portion an angle situated at the level of the ex- 

 ternal occipital protuberance, and of the curved line which 

 starts from it on each side. In animals a portion of the 

 occipital bone is horizontal, it is true ; but this bone being 

 sharply bent at the level of the occipital foramen and condyles, 

 the result is that the portion which surmounts these latter 



