378 DR. ST. G. MIVART ON THE ARCTOIDEA. [Apr. 21, 



The tongue has rather small but very marked pyriform papillae 

 scattered all over its surface. The flattened papillae are considerably 

 elongated and rather conspicuous. The circumvallate papillae form 

 a V ^it'' three fine papillae in either limb and one at the apex. 



The brain * is very different from that of Galictis, in that its 

 hippocampal gyrus is cut off from the sagittal gyrus by the junction 

 of the calloso-marginal and crucial sulci. There is a more or less 

 well-defined Ursine lozenge. 



Mustela'. — The Martens, or Stouter Weasels with normally four 

 premolars on each side, both above aud below, present us with the 

 first Arctoid genus, but not species, common to the Old and New 

 Worlds. Of the nine or ten species which appear to compose it, some 

 are common to Europe and Asia, but none to the Palaearctic and 

 Nearctic, or to the Paleearctic and Oriental regions, though the 

 M. flavigula extends from Northern Hiudostan to Java, Sumatra, 

 and Borneo. No species is Neotropical. The American Pekan ', 

 M. pennanti, is the giant of the genus, which may be 30 inches from 

 snout to tail-root, with the tail 16 inches long. 



The body is long, the limbs short and tligitigrade, the pectoral 

 limb being about 54, and the pelvic limb 69, to the spine taken at 

 100. 



The ears are low, broad, and hairy on both sides. There is a 

 distinct pouch, a moderate tragus and antitragus, a small helix, a 

 very prominent snpratragus overhanging a fossa bounded beneath by 

 a rather marked transverse ridge and surmounted by another fossa, 

 bounded above by a rounded transverse ridge. The nose has a 

 median vertical groove. 



The soles and palms are generally hairy. In some forms, as in 

 the Sable, they are extremely furry, but sometimes in southern 

 species the palms and soles are naked '. 



There are 14 dorsal, 6 lumbar, 3 sacral, and from 18-'23 caudal 

 vertebrae. 



The metatarsals are at their maximum of relative length amongst 

 Arctoids, while the length of the skull may be at its minimum 

 (14"5 to 100) as also the length and breadth of the palate, width of 

 the zygomata, the braiu-case, the breadth behind the orbits, the 

 length of the first upper true molar and of the second lower true 

 molar, all compared with the length of the spine from the atlas to 

 the end of the sacrum. 



Here the ueui-al spine of the eleventh dorsal vertebra inclines 

 forwards. The scapula has a large metacromion process. 



' See ;. e. pp. 16 & 17, figs. 6 & 7. 



- MusteJa, Linnaus, Wagner, P. Gervais, and others ; Maries, Gesner, Eay, 

 Bell, Gray, Fitzinger, &c. For synonvmy see Coues, ' Fiir-bearing Animals,' 

 pp. 59, 62, 74, 77, 79, 81, 97, &c. 



^ Pekan, Buffon, H. Kat. xiii. p. .304, pi. 42 ; Audubon & Bachman, Q. N. A. 

 i. 307, pi. 41 ; the Eurojiean and American Sables {M. zihellina and M. ameri- 

 cana) belong to this genus ; the Weasels, Ermines, Stoats, Ferrets, Polecats. 

 Minks, and Vison, to Putorius. 



' I am indebted to Mr. Oldfield Thomas for calling my attention to this 

 fact. 



