PROCEEDINGS 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, 



January U, IBS*. 

 Joseph Sabine, Esq., Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Several crania were exhibited of the Lion and of the Tiger, form- 

 ing part of the Society's Museum, on which Mr. Owen explained 

 the distinguishing characteristics of that part of the osseous system 

 of these two large species of Fdis. He adverted in the first instance 

 to those pointed out by Cuvier in the 'Ossemens Fossiles', and re- 

 marked on the first of them, — the straightness of the outline in 

 the Lion from the mid-space of the postorbital processes to the 

 end of the nasal bones, in one direction, and to the occiput in the 

 other, — as not being in all cases available : the second distinction, — 

 the flattening of the interorbital space in the Lion and its convexity 

 in the Tiger, — he regarded as being more constant and appreciable 

 tlian the one just mentioned. There is, however, a distinction 

 which he believes has never been published, which is well marked, 

 and which appears to be constant; for it is found to prevail through- 

 out the whole of the skulls of these animals which he has had -op- 

 portunities of examining, including ten of the Lion, and upwards of 

 tw^enty of the Tiger. It consists in the prolongation backwards, in 

 the cranium of the Lioti, of the nasal processes of the maxillary 

 bones to the same transverse line which is attained by the coronal 

 or superior ends of the nasal bones : in the Tiger the nasal pro- 

 cesses of the maxillary bones never extend nearer to the transverse 

 plane attained by the nasal bones than ird of an inch, and some- 

 times fall short of it by frds, terminating also broadly in a straight 

 or angular outline, just as though the rounded and somewhat pointed 

 ends which these processes have in the Lion had been cut off. 



Minor differences, Mr. Owen remarked, exist in the form of the 

 nasal aperture, which in the Tiger is disposed to narrow down- 

 wards, and become somewhat triangular, while in the Lion its 



No. XIII. rROCEEDINGS OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SoCIETY. 



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