1869. | CLASSIFICATION OF THE CARNIVORA, 21 
panded and applied paroccipital process, the concealed condyloid, 
and absent glenoid foramen. The carotid foramen is distinct, situated 
at the anterior extremity of the posterior chamber; and, as in th 
other Herpestines, the alisphenoid canal is present. 
Fig. 9. 
Herpestes ichneumon. From a specimen in the British Museum. 
(The letters as in the preceding figures.) 
The Felide and the Viverride have thus the auditory bulla and 
surrounding portions of the cranium formed upon a common plan dis- 
tinct from that of the Arctoidea, the essential features of which are: — 
1. The bulla is greatly dilated, rounded, smooth, thin-walled, and 
divided by a septum into two distinct portions, communicating only by 
a narrow aperture—an outer or true tympanic portion, into which 
the meatus externus and the eustachian tube open, and a simple vesi- 
cular inner chamber. 
2. The bony meatus is extremely short; or when prolonged (as 
in Rhyzena), the inferior wall is imperfect. 
3. The paroccipital process is closely applied to, and, as it were, 
spread over the hinder part of the bulla. 
4. The mastoid process is never very salient, and often obsolete. 
5. The carotid canal is small, sometimes very inconspicuous, and 
rarely, if ever, a true canal excavated in the substance of the wall of 
the bulla, but a groove converted into a canal by the basioccipital 
bone applied to its inner side. 
6. A ridge from the paroccipital process to the condyle encloses 
the condyloid foramen in a common fossa with the opening of the 
foramen lacerum posticum. 
7. The glenoid foramen is extremely minute, or absent. 
The animals which possess these characters show their affinity to 
