PUTORIUS ERMINEUS. 117 



Should the entire skeleton or the whole series of caudal 

 vertebrae of the same individual ever be found in a fossil 

 state, they would yield more decisive evidence in respect of 

 the two existing British species, since the Stoat has seven- 

 teen vertebras in the tail, and the common Weasel but 

 fifteen. 



A less entire skull (fig. 42), which, by its size, must also 

 be referred to the larger Weasel, (Putorius ermineus,) dis- 

 covered by Mr. Mac Enery in Kent's Hole, and having all 

 the fossilized characters of the extinct mammals of that 

 rich natural mausoleum, is now also in the British Museum. 

 In this skull the thin cranial bones are broken away : the 

 lower jaw is lost, but the upper molar teeth are preserved 

 in situ. 



The specimen is cited by M. de Blainville, from a figure 

 of it communicated to him by Mr. Mac Enery, as apper- 

 taining without any doubt to the common Weasel* (Belette). 

 As there is no appreciable difference in the dentition of the 

 Ermine and common Weasel, the question cannot be satis- 

 factorily determined ; but, if the present specimen belong to 

 the Putorius vulgaris, it indicates an individual of unusually 

 large size. 



Dr. Buckland first made known the fact that the 

 Weasel had been associated with the extinct Hyaena, a few 

 jaws and teeth of this small vermineous carnivore having 

 been found fossil in the celebrated cave at Kirkdale. Two 

 of these teeth, the sectorial premolar and the tuberculate 

 true molar of the upper jaw, are figured by the author of 

 the " Reliquiae Diluvianas," and they are pronounced by 

 Cuvier to be exactly like those teeth in the common exist- 

 ing species : they, however, equally resemble those of the 

 Ermine. The lower jaw from the Kirkdale cavern, figured 



* Loc. cit. p. 59. 



