1870.] DR. J. MURIE ON SAIGA TARTARICA. 459 
arch, the orbital plates forming the outer boundary. The horns 
issue vertically above the small temporal fossee. The occipital 
region is relatively narrow and ovoid ; the semilunar condyles are 
no way prominent, and laterally bound a squarish foramen magnum. 
The compressed and, in this view, thin, paramastoid processes are 
but moderately long and perpendicularly set. 
The base of the skull (see fig. 6) is characterized—lIst, by 
great orbital breadth ; 2nd, by the molar arch enclosing a rounded 
pterygo-malar space, posteriorly limited by a wide glenoid articula- 
ting surface; 3rd, the basioccipital region is broad relatively to its 
length; 4th, the tympanic bulle of medium size; 5th, the pos- 
terior nares very deep and moderately wide; 6th, dental portion 
of palate broad, but much narrower in front, slightly concave 
from behind forwards and across; 7th, the masseteric portions 
of the maxillaries bulge considerably beyond the alveoli; 8th, the 
premolar teeth incline inwards, a ridge running on to the premax- 
illaries; 9th, the premaxillaries are produced forwards, in a flat- 
tened beak-like manner. 
I may further add, as a feature of some moment, that when the 
skull rests basally on a horizontal surface (the top of a table for 
example), the crown and nasals strike upwards, nearly parallel, at 
about an angle of 20° to the plane. This, so far as I am aware, is 
not the case with any ether living Bovine form; indeed, instead of 
the parietals and nasal tops exhibiting parallelism of plane, they 
trend downwards at a more or less obtuse angle from each other. 
Alces and Rupicapra offer no exception, though the horns of the 
latter are well nigh erect. 
(B) Individual Bones.—The parietals (Pa.) are short and low- 
arched. The coronal suture is strongly marked by two semilunar 
ridges, whose concavities are forwards ; and they blend together in a 
line with the sagittal suture, and run on in a slight ridge towards 
the prefrontal region. 
Between the horns, and partly to their rear, the frontal bone 
(Fr.) is moderately elevated, with shallow lateral depressions. In 
advance of their roots, however, the bone shelves rapidly to a lower 
horizontal level, continuous with the nasals. The osseous horn-core 
springs obliquely backwards, above and slightly behind the orbit. 
A large triangular supraorbital foramen is situate at their base, and 
half an inch beyond the outer raised border of the bone terminates 
in a small eminence joining the lachrymal. The broad fronto-orbi- 
tal plate juts well outwards, producing the greatest cranial breadth 
at this part, as it forms the upper and posterior circuit of the orbit. 
An irregular bordered wedge-shaped portion of the frontal is in- 
serted betwixt the nasal and lachrymal bones, which, however, falls 
short of, and is much higher than, the maxillary bone. 
The diminishment of the nasals and correlated extensive inter- 
maxillary space, or open narial region, are the most extraordinary 
features of the skull. The stoutish ossa nasi (a.), l-inch long, 
together constitute an almost equal-sided triangle, instead of an 
elongate splint of bone surmounting the nasal arch, as in general 
