438 MR. A. H. G. DORAN ON THE MORPHOLOGY 



may be better compared in shape to a grenadier's bearskin. It is formed of dense and 

 brittle bone, and lies in a concavity which bulges into the temporal fossa. There can 

 be no doubt of its nature as a simple though extreme elongation of the ordinary 

 caput mallei. On its root posteriorly is seated, very obliquely, the equally modified 

 articular surface, which is long and narrow, slightly concave, without any indication 

 of division into facets, and prominently raised above the level of the contiguous parts 

 of the ossicle. 



The neck is long, stout, and cylindrical; and a small depression on it extends towards 

 the root of the head, and probably represents the site of the lamina, the ridge of bone 

 below it being the root of the processus gracilis. I have found the ossicle slightly 

 adherent to the tympanic bone at that ridge, and have reason to believe that part of the 

 processus gracilis is modified and enlarged , and assists in forming a portion of the pro- 

 cess chiefly developed from the head. The manubrium (mn) is very short, being hardly 

 the length of the neck; it bears a very prominent processus brevis, and is scarcely 

 dilated at the extremity. Hyrtl does not appear to recognize either neck or processus 

 brevis in the Golden Mole. 



I have detected a small tubercular processus muscularis in the neck of the manubrium 

 of C. trevelyani, where the head does not form so great a prominence in the temporal 

 fossa. 



The incus of Chrysocldoris is as modified in form as is its malleus. The body is of the 

 lone and narrow shape of the articular surface of the outer ossicle, and is much con- 

 stricted before giving off its crura ; its long axis intersects a line drawn from the tip of 

 the long to that of the short process, instead of being parallel to the latter as in other 

 mammals. Both crura are long, and stout, and rounded ; the stapedial crus ends in a 

 very minute Sylvian apophysis. 



The stapes has a small head, and short, very divergent crura ; a stout bony canal runs 

 between them in the recent skeleton. The base is long horizontally, and very broad 

 vertically in the middle ; it is convex towards the vestibule without being bullate. In 

 many respects this stapes resembles that of Spalax. 



In the Hedgehog (Erinaceus europceus, PL LXII. fig. 13) and its allies the malleus 

 assumes a very characteristic form. The head of that ossicle is very small, and bears 

 a perfectly saddle-shaped articular surface, the two convex facets insensibly merging 

 into each other, without any groove to separate them. The . neck is extremely long, and 

 forms a wide arch without any angular prominence as in Sorex. Prom its inner side, a 

 perceptible distance from the root of the manubrium, springs a straight, narrow, and 

 prominent processus muscularis ; and nearer to the handle there projects from the neck a 

 considerable prominence, not so large as in the Shrew, or even as in G-ymnura, but 

 clearly the homologue of the orbicular apophysis in those and in other Insectivora. 

 The manubrium is slender, and but slightly dilated, and recurved at the tip ; the angle 

 corresponding to the processus brevis is very blunt, and pushed outwards and forwards 

 by the rudimentary orbicular apophysis. 



The lamina is wider than in any other animal; the processus gracilis is reinforced 

 by a distinct process from the front of the head ; and they together form an extremely 



