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IIQ DR. J. MURIE ON THE THREE-BANDED ARMADILLO 



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YII. Of the Skeleton. 



After Cuvier's excellent chapter in Ms * Ossemens Eossiles * \ wherein the hony frame- 

 work of the Three-handed Armadillo is brought into comparison with others of the 

 trvouv, Turner's critical summary of characters of Tolypeutes tricinctus\ Owen's 

 notices of osteological specimens in the Hunterian Museum ^ Giehel's article \ where 

 T. conurus is submitted to descriptive analysis, Gray's ^ Burmeister's ^ and others' 

 remarks, my instituting a long and minute verbal account of the skeleton would be super- 

 fluous. I have preferred to figure most of the bones separately, or in connexion (where 

 relation of segment is concerned) , along with a characteristic view of the flexed skeleton. 



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Thus the greater number of parts needfal for comparison in a palaeontological point of 

 view, are rapidly surveyed and readily comprehended. I limit written material, there- 

 fore, to the more equivocal portions, or such as have hitherto been meagrely dwelt on. 



1. Skull and Mandible. 



inches. 



Extreme length of the cranium 2'9 



Greatest width (at descending portion of jugal) 1*4 



Breadth at the mastoidal region I'l 



Length of the palate • # . • . . 1'8 



Each row of teeth in length 1-3 



Diaraetcrj from the outside of one condyle to the other . . ^ . . . • 0*85 



Tlie prcemaxillie in length (superiorly) ^ 0'7 



Greatest depth of the skull without the mandible . • • 1*0 ? 



Extreme length of the brain- cavity . . . . , 1*6 



Its narrowest diameter (at orbito-sphenoids) 0*6 



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Its widest diameter (which applies to olfactory and temporal regions) . . 0*9 



Lower jaw in extreme length • . . 2*4 



From the anterior root of ascending ramus forwards 1*55 



Height^ from tip of coronoid process dropping perpendicularly 1*0 



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In the view of the interior base of the skull (fig. 51) a portion of the frontal has been 

 removed, which exposes a large surface of the frontal and maxillary sinuses. These are 

 very extensive, and occupy within a trifle of the cranial breadth at this part. The 

 general direction of the main septa is radial to the ethmoid bone, many transverse 

 and oblique minor partitions to these constituting the distinguishing loculi. Besides 

 these, laterally and in front, there is a very capacious maxillary chamber. This reaches 

 from the front of the zygoma forwards nearly the whole length of the superior maxillary, 

 and it matcriaUy produces the skuU's maxillo -frontal breadth. It answers to the 

 nntnim of nighmore in human anatomy. At the sides of the thin ethmo-vomerine plate 



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Osteol 



! 7Z ^'"'^^'^^ ^'' GiirtcltUere;* in Zoitech. f. d. gesam. Natnrwis. (1861), Band, xviii 



Catalogiies and «♦ EntomophasoiLs 



i80 d. La Plata,' vol. ii., and ' Analea d. Mus. Pub. d. Baenoa Aires,' vols. i. and ii. ( 



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