CEREBRAL CONVOLTJTIOIirS OE THE CARNIVOEA. 3 



forced ou me a conviction of the great variability of the more 

 minute details of cerebral conformation. As Professor Burt 

 Wilder remarks *, when the brains of two or three individuals are 

 alone examined, it is easy enough to draw out distinctive cha- 

 racters, many of which, however, a more extended survey soon 

 shows to be worthless. I have been greatly impressed, not only 

 with the variability in the details of the gyri in the same species, 

 but even with the differences which every now and then present 

 themselves in the two sides of the brain of the very same indi- 

 vidual. Nevertheless, in spite of the great variability referred 

 to as to matters of detail, I am convinced that the characters on 

 which I lay stress have a taxonomic value, and some of them 

 appear to me also to possess a certain phylogenetic interest and 

 significance. 



Ctnoidea. 



The brains, not only of all Dogs, but of all the animals which 

 together constitute the suborder Cynoideaf, are as a rule siugu- 

 larly uniform as regards those points of structure with which the 

 present paper is concerned. I have examined the brains of 

 various domestic Dogs, of the Pox, Jackal, the common "Wolf, 

 the Eed Wolf, Canis Azara>, C. microtis, and the singular 

 Eaccoon-like Dog, C. procyonoides (type of the proposed genus 

 Nycter elites), as also of Icticyon venaticus, Lycaonpictus, and Oto- 

 cyon megaJotis, availing myself in the study of this, as of every 

 other group, of the rich and yearly increasing stores preserved in 

 the Museum of the Eoyal College of Surgeons. 



The cerebral characters which have been pointed out before as 

 common to the Canidse I have found uniformly present, save 



* Proc. of Amer. Assoc, for the Adyancem. of Sci. p. 233. He says : — "After 

 a pretty careful study of the specimens and works at my command, I feel justi- 

 fied in asserting that we cannot as yet cliaracterize the fissural pattern of any 

 Mammalian order, family, genus, or even species without the risk that the next 

 specimen will inyalidate our conclusion." He advocates, p. 232, a study of the 

 variation presented by the two sides of the brain of the same individual in order 

 to obtain " a test of the value of the differences observed amongst brains." 8uch 

 a study might be thus useful ; but it does not come within the scope of the present 

 paper. 



t See Leuret, I. c. vol. i. pp. 373-378, plate iv. ; Dareste, I. c. p. 74, fig. 1 ; P. 

 Gervais, I.e. pp. 107-119, plates i., ii., and figs. 1-7, plate iii. ; Burt Wilder, 

 I. c. pp. 214-248, with many figures of varieties, plates i.-v. ; Xrueg, I. c. 

 pp. 612-617, plate xxxiy. ; and Langley, I. c. pp. 248-280, woodcuts, figs. 1-3, 

 and plates vii. & viii. 



1* 



