120 



DE. H. T'. STAJSTDING- ON SUBFOSSIL 



Lemuk jullti (Standing). 



Description of Skull of L. jullyi. (Plate XX VII.) 

 Nine of the eleven skulls of Lemur in the collection of the Academie Malgache form 

 a series which, while presenting many individual variations, can hest be described under 

 one specific name. One of this series I have already figured and briefly described 

 under the name L. jullyi. A lengthy description of this species is not necessary for 

 my present purpose, the series of photographs given on PL XXVII. with the table of 

 dimensions at the end of the present section will sufficiently indicate its main features. 

 The existing species which comes nearest to this subfossil form is L. varius, and the 

 species, as already pointed out in my preliminary notice, is intermediate between 



Text-fia-. 28. 



Occiirats of (A) Mcsopropiifiecus piiliecoides and (B) Lemur jullyi, compared. 



L. insignis and L. varius. A comparison with the latter shows it to be larger and 

 more massive in every way. Nearly all the full-grown specimens possess powerful 

 ridges and crests, the sagittal and lambdoidal being specially prominent. 



Occipital Region. — The condyles are much broader than in the extant species, a line 

 of chief convexity running obliquely outwards and upwards and separating two distinct 

 planes of contact with the atlas, an upper posterior and lower antero-external one, in a 

 manner closely analogous to that seen in Mesopropithecus and Archceolemur. The 

 plane of the occiput is much larger than in the recent species, though this condition 

 is partly due to the prominence of the lambdoidal crest already alluded to. The 

 paroccipital processes are large and prominent (text-fig. 28). 



Parietal and Frontal Regions. — The brain-case is pear-shaped, presenting in every 

 case the curious frontal constriction which we have seen to be so marked a feature of 

 the Malagasy subfossil Lemuroids. The supraorbital frontal ridges are prominent, 

 though slightly less so than in adult specimens of L. varius. The central frontal 

 region difl"ers greatly in appearance, however, from the corresponding part of L. varius, 

 owing to the fact that the sagittal crest divides at or near the coronal suture and is 

 continued by two prominent diverging ridges which are confluent with the outer 

 posterior edge of the postorbital bar. These anterior and posterior paired ridges thus 

 enclose a diamond-shaped more or less flattened region similar to that observed in 

 Megaladains, and evidently analogous to the raised frontal region existing in Arclmo- 

 lemur and Mesoprop)it]iecus (text-fig. 29). 



