1882.] PROF. ST.-GEORGE MIVART ON THE ELUROIDEA. 203. 
palmar or plantar pad, and one pad for each toe; and the tarsus and 
metatarsus are hairy. The nose ismedianly 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 vertebre. 
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 Hyena; 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 
bulle ; 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 Hyena. 
The teeth, as is universally known, are quite abnormal and rudi- 
mentary. There are only three small, conical, blunt upper molars, 
whereof only *-2 is two-rooted. There are only two lower molars, 
whereof only the hinder one is two-rooted. 
Proteles agrees with the Hyznas 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 Proteline from 
the Hyenine. 
The characters common to the whole family Hyenide 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 
