578 MR. ST. GEORGE MIVART ON THE [June 27, 
to be the upper slightly produced extremities of the not completely 
- coalesced neurapophyses of that vertebra in Man.” 
I do not for a moment pretend to assert that there is any funda- 
mental distinction between a single, a bifid, and a trifid neural spine ; 
at the same time it may be well to note these varieties of structure, 
and the fact that, as has been said, it is with the lateral parts of such 
trifid spines, or with the halves of such bifid spines, that these extra 
processes appear to be serially homologous. 
In the genus Canis the axis and three following cervical vertebree 
support processes, decreasing in size as we proceed from before back- 
wards, which project posteriorly, and are situated upon, and rather 
internally to, the posterior zygapophyses. They are quite distinct 
from the cervical metapophyses, and disappear at the sixth cervical 
vertebra (figs. 7 &9,/). Similar processes exist in other Carnivora, 
as the genus Felis, and in Ursus labiatus*. On the other hand, they 
are quite wanting in the large marsupial Carnivore Thylacinust. 
Are these processes the homologues of those just described as ex- 
isting in Mycetes and others? 
I am disposed, provisionally at least, so to regard them; but, 
whether they are so or not, the extra processes existing in Primates 
are so marked in some species, and serve so well to distinguish cer- 
tain groups one from another, that I cannot but think that it would 
be convenient and every way proper to bestow on them a distinct 
appellation ; and recognizing fully as I do the great convenience, as 
Professor Owen has pointed out, of terms capable of being inflected 
adjectively, and desiring that the new term should harmonize with 
those already so happily devised, I propose for the process in ques- . 
tion the term Ayperapophysis. 
CENTRUM. 
Speaking broadly, the bodies of the vertebrze of the different re- 
gions of the spine have much the same relative proportions through- 
out the Anthropoidea. They are relatively widest transversely in 
the cervical vertebrae, narrowest and shortest in the dorsal region, 
and expanded both in length and breadth in the lumbar. 
In the Lemuroidea, except the Nycticebina, the elongated cervical 
centra alter the proportion. The Nycticebine differ from all the 
other forms in the small increase in breadth of their lumbar vertebrze, 
in which respect they are most nearly approached by the Gorilla. 
I have not been able to detect in the vertebral column any di- 
stinetive characters separating the whole of one of the two primary 
divisions, or suborders, of the Primates from the whole of the other, 
parallel to the cranial and dental distinctions which so well charac- 
terize those two groups respectively. It is the great variety of struc- 
ture presented by the second suborder (Lemuroidea) which renders 
it difficult or impossible to give satisfactory spinal distinctive cha- 
racters; for the typical Lemurs present marked differences enough 
* E. g. skeleton (no. 4037) in the collection of the Royal College of Surgeons. 
t EH. g. skeleton (no. 1984) in the same collection. 
