PUTOKIUS VULGARIS. 



113 



The fossil remains of a small Carnivore of the Weasel- 

 family (Mustelida), of the same size as the common Pole- 

 cat, were first noticed by Cuvier, in his Memoir " On the 

 Bones of Carnivora, associated with those of Bears in 

 Hungary and Germany," published in the " Annales du 

 Museum," for 1807,* and subsequently reproduced in the 

 successive editions of his great work on extinct animals. 



The remains in question were a few bones of the trunk 

 and extremities : one of the vertebrae, the antepenultimate 

 dorsal, differed from that in the common Pole-cat, and 

 resembled that in the Cape species, called Zorille, in its 

 greater breadth compared with its length ; an approximation 

 which Cuvier recognised with much interest, seeing that 

 the bones of the Cave Hysena resembled most closely those 

 of the existing spotted Hyoena of the Cape.-f- The other 

 remains, however, of the little fossil Carnivore bore a closer 

 resemblance to the bones of the common Pole-cat, which 

 induced Cuvier to leave its affinities doubtful, and to for- 

 bear adducing the Cave Polecat in support of a once 

 favourite idea, that it was in Southern Africa that we 

 should look for the existing quadrupeds most nearly allied 

 to those extinct species recognised by bones found in the 

 Caves of Europe. 



The entire skull {fig. 38), discovered in association with 

 larger extinct quadrupeds in the bone-cave recently explored 

 at Berry Head, Devon, by the Rev. Mr. Lyte, affords decisive 



* Tom. ix. p. 437. 



t "La vertebre dorsale est moins longue et plus grosse que dans le putois: elle 

 ressemble a celle du zorille, et ce rapprochement me frappa d'abord singulierement, 

 vu que les os d'hyene de ces cavernes ressemblent aussi beaucoup a ceux d' 

 hyene tachetee, qui vient du Cap comme le zorille." Ossem. Foss. ed. cit. p. 467. 



M. de Blainville affirms, upon a re-examination of the fossils described by 

 Cuvier, that the dorsal vertebra is the last of that series in the Martin-cat (Fouine) 

 and belongs to a distinct animal from the pelvic bone and caudal vertebrae, both 

 which he refers, with Cuvier, to the Pole-cat. Osteoyraphie de Mustela, p. 57. 



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