88 DR. ST. GEORGE MIVART ON THE GENUS CYON. [Feb. 18, 



3. Notes on the Geuus Cyon. 

 By St. George Mivart, F.R.S. 



[Keceired February 1, 1890.] 



Through the kindness of the authorities iu charge of the Zoological 

 Collection in our National Museum, I have been enabled to make as 

 careful an examination as I could of the numerous specimens (skins 

 and skulls) of the above-named interesting genus which are therein 

 preserved. 



Amongst the skulls I find one, No. 58. 5. 4. 99, which came 

 from the collection of this Society, and which presents the singular 

 anomaly of having no trace of the second upper molar on either 

 side. 



With this exception, all the skulls examined by me agree in 

 possessing the following characters, most of which I have not found 

 to have been as yet noted : — 



Nasal bones extending backwards much beyond the adjacent 

 portions of the maxillse ; the external margin of each nasal, distad 

 of the nasal process of the frontal, strongly concave, so that the 

 outer margin of the whole length of each nasal has a subsigmoid 

 outline. Face relatively short ; dorsal surface of interorbital region 

 but little concave transversely ; skull viewed in profile showing very 

 little vertical elevation of the interorbital region, the concavity thus 

 apparent between it and the distal end of the nasals being very slight 

 both in degree and in antero-posterior extent ; postorhital processes 

 of the frontal projecting outwards but shghtly ; postorbital processes 

 of the malar rather marked ; zygomata not strongly arched outwards ; 

 anterior palatine foramina very large and much elongated. First 

 upper premolar approaching the second in sizs more nearly than in 

 Canis ; fourth upper premolar with a smaller internal lobe ; inner 

 portion of first upper molar relatively smaller, its inner tubercles 

 and cingulum having more or less completely coalesced ; first lower 

 molar relatively smaller, especially its inner ridge. Tail decidedly 

 less than half the length of the bodv. 



I have been unable to satisfy myself that more than two species 

 of this genus can be distinguished, and it seems to me possible that 

 even this distinction may be found unsatisfactory when more skulls 

 are obtained from Northern Asia. 



The North-Asiatic species C. alpinus of Pallas ^ is represented by 

 two skins which differ slightly in colour. One from Siberia is very 

 white ; the other, which has a yellow tinge, comes from the Altai, 

 and its skull is in the collection ^ It differs from all the other skulls 

 in the large size of its second upper molar (as has been previously 

 recorded) and also in the large size of the second (and last) lower 

 molar, and in the less massive form of the angle of the mandible. 



o 



' Zoogr. Eosso-Asiat. i. p. 34. 



= It is that marked No. IX. in Prof. Hujdey'e table of measurementa, P. Z. S. 

 1880, p. 275. 



