1882.] PROF. ST.-GEORGE MIVART ON THE .^LTTROIDEA. 205^ 



palmar or plantar pad, and one pad for each toe ; and the tarsus and 

 metatarsus are hairy. The nose is medianly grooved beneath. The 

 fur is woolly, of a yellowish or reddish brown, with a few vertical 

 black bands on the sides of the body, and others, more or less hori- 

 zontal, on the limbs. The claws are blunt, non- retractile, and rather 

 long. There is an anal pouch with one pair of anal glands, and a 

 supraanal band of follicles, as in Crocuta. The penis is boneless ; 

 and there are fifteen dorsal vertebrae. 



As to the skull, its auditory bulla is (as Prof. Flower has pointed 

 out) large, pyriform, and everted posteriorly as in Herpestes, divided 

 by a septum into two chambers, one in front of the other. The 

 margin of the external opening of the auditory meatus (which has 

 no fissure or foramen in its floor) is most prominent anteriorly. There 

 is no alisphenoid canal ; the carotid canal is as in Hycena ; the par- 

 occipital process is flattened, and does not depend ; the mastoid is 

 rather strongly prominent ; the postorbital processes of the frontal 

 are pointed and well developed ; the skull is not pinched in behind 

 them ; the malar processes are moderately developed ; the cranial 

 ridges are weak ; but the zygoma is rather strongly arched outwards ; 

 the condyloid foramen is concealed ; the palate is very wide, and is 

 considerably prolonged ; and the pterygoid bones come very near the 

 bullse ; the mesopterygoid fossa is very wide. The angle of the 

 mandible is singularly flattened behind ; and its apex is produced 

 directly backwards. The hinder part of the horizontal ramus is bent 

 up as in Hycena.. 



The teeth, as is universally known, are quite abnormal and rudi- 

 mentary. There are only three small, conical, blunt upper molars, 

 whereof only -^ is two-rooted. There are only two lower molars, 

 whereof only the hinder one is two-rooted. 



Proteles agrees with the Hysenas in the characters just enumerated 

 except Nos. 1,5,6,7, 13, 15, 16, 17, 31,32, 34, 36, 37, 41, and 43. 



These characters, then, serve to differentiate the ProteliiicB from 

 the Hi/cenines. 



The characters common to the whole family HycEnidcB will then 

 stand as follows : — 



(1) There may or may not be a pollex ; but in the majority of 



species there is not one. 



(2) There is never a hallux. 



(3) The ungual phalanges are never strongly arched ; nor is there 

 a wide lamina to shelter the base of the claw. 



(4) The claws are never more than slightly arched ; they are blunt 



and non-retractile. 



(5) The auditory bulla is inflated, but generally gives no external 



indication of division. 



(6) The bulla entirely ankylosed into one mass, and is not more 

 prominent towards its inner than towards its hinder border. 



(7) There is generally only a rudiment of a septum within the 

 bulla. 



(8) The bony meatus auditorius is shorter, and has the anterior 



