().\ AN i:\TI NOT TYPE OF DOC l'i;o\| ELY CAVE, 

 LEE COUNTY, VIRGINIA. 



The five bones which form the subject of the present paper were found b\ 

 Professor X. S. Shaler in Ely Cave, Virginia, close to tin' Kentucky line. 

 They consisl of a scapula, a humerus, a femur, and a tibia, all belonging 

 to the right side, and a pell is. A comparison of each singly \\ ith the corre- 

 sponding bones of a dog or wolf shows at once their canine affinities; taken 

 collectively, however, they indicate an animal of very different proportions 

 from any of the ordinary wild Canidce, or from any race of domestic dog. 

 The bones were found together, and appear to nave belonged to the same 

 imlix [dual. As cat e finds are sometimes open to suspicion, especially in the 

 case of remains of animals from or near the surface of a cave floor, my 

 first endeavor, on finding that these bones were not referable to any existing 



indigenous species, was to identify them with some small stout for f 



domestic dog; here, however, no nearer approach was found to the type in 

 question than among the wild species. The conviction, therefore, thai these 



b s represenl an extinct type of the dog family has gradually become 



strengthened by the comparisons made until no other hypothesis seems 

 tenable. 



These bones differ from those of ordinary dogs, wild or domestic, in the 

 shortness of the humerus as compared with the scapula, and of the femur 

 as compared with the pelvis, but especially in the form of the pelvis, which 

 is arched to a most remarkable degree, more so than in any other species 



known t ■. Other details in which these lion.'- differ from those of the 



fox, wolf, and dog are pointed out in the descriptions here following. As 

 regards the relationship of the type in question with exotic or extinct lorn is, 

 I can say little, being without means of making the necessary comparisons. 

 In genera] form it was evidently a very short-limbed, heavy-bodied animal, 

 recalling the proportions of the badger rather than those of a dog. For 

 this reason it would be desirable to compare it with the short-legged Tcticyon 

 venaticus of South America; in lack, however, of the opportunity, I can only 

 add that the descriptions of this animal do not lead one to expecl even here 

 a very close affinity. In regard to extinct species, of t'.w only are the limb- 



