1870. ] DR. J. MURIE ON SAIGA TARTARICA. 463 
The squamous portion of the temporal bone (Sq) has a low smooth- 
surfaced longish elliptical figure, its anterior angle abutting against 
the alisphenoid. The zygoma arises by a thin broadish horizontal 
piece, scooped out at its root above, and perforated by a wide fora- 
men; and as the bone arches forward to unite with and overlie the 
jugal, it thickens. The glenoid (g/) or articular surface is pretty 
convex, and, with a shallow postglenoid sulcus, much narrower than 
in Antelopes generally; and the large postglenoid foramen still 
further reduces it. The articular eminence or tubercle is small, but 
well marked. The auditory meatus (az) has a moderate diameter, 
and is directed very gently upwards and forwards. The styloid pro- 
cess or plate is short; and the fossa for the attachment of the arti- 
cular portion of the stylohyal is likewise as in Sheep, small. 
- The mastoidal eminence is not nearly so full and prominent as in 
-most Bovidee ; it nevertheless rises in a pronounced roughened ridge, 
which, however, is scooped out towards the root of the paramastoid. 
The tympanic bulla (Ty) is rather well developed, and moderately 
inflated. 
The paramastoid process (Pmd.), one inch long, descends almost 
vertically ; seen from behind, it is laterally compressed, with a slight 
outward obliquity of the posterior border ; but from the side, is flat 
and V-shaped, and partially rests against the tympanic. A wide, 
deep excavation intervenes between the paramastoid and the condyle ; 
and this cavity narrows to a curved fissure betwixt the tympanic and 
basioccipital bones. 
A narrow strip of the supraoccipital (So) forms the hinder portion 
of the top of the skull. Its lambdoidal suture, in the Society’s male 
specimen, runs transversely with a double forwardly convex curve, 
this being straighter in the Hunterian skeleton. The superior curved 
line describes a full arch, is rough, and only moderately prominent ; 
an inferior curved line, less marked, is well nigh obsolete. An external 
occipital protuberance is but very partially denoted, although the 
spine is broad and well developed. 
The hollows to which the long muscles of the neck and the liga- 
mentum nuche cranially fix themselves are distinctly and separately 
impressed, giving a rugose surface to the occiput, which is altogether 
broadly arched. The supraoccipital facies is neither so bulging as 
in Antelopes and Goats, nor so perpendicularly scooped as in Deer 
It agrees more, therefore, with Sheep, but in the male Saiga has 
not such strong ridges and concavities as in the thicker-necked 
Ram. 
The articular condyles of the exoccipital (Zo) have each a transverse 
ungulate figure, which, convex from before backwards and laterally, 
is yet less prominent or posteriorly sustained than in the Ante- 
lopes, coinciding rather with Sheep and Deer. The nearly circular 
or slightly transversely oval* foramen magnum pertains to Ovis in 
its moderate diameters. Divergently forwards from the inferior root 
of the condyles, two transversely ridged, large-sized eminences stand 
out (p.t.), these in disposition and breadth following the type of 
* Decidedly ovoid in the Cambridge female skull examined by me. 
