DREPANODON. 



459 



XI. NOTE ON THE REMAINS OF DREPANODON OR 

 MACHAIRODUS OF REPUTED BRITISH ORIGIN. 1 



Remains of the great feline carnivore of the Cave period, armed in 

 the upper jaw with long compressed and falciform canines, are every- 

 where so rare in Europe, that I have been induced to examine all the 

 specimens of reputed British origin. The dentition, characters of the 

 skull, and closely feline affinities of the numerous forms belonging to 

 the cenus variously named Drepanodon, Megantereon, Machairodus, 

 Stenodon, and Smilodon, by different palaeontologists, are now well 

 known, through the finely preserved materials discovered by Bravard 

 in Auvergne, of his Felis megantereon, and by Lund in Brazil, of his 

 Smilodon populator. But of the largest and most formidable of the 

 European species, only one or two incisors and a few upper canines are 

 at present known collectively, from a single cave of Kent's Hole in 

 England, from Auvergne, and from the Val d'Arno. It is of importance 

 in instituting a comparison between the Mammalian Faunas of England 

 and Italy, during the Pliocene and Post- Pliocene periods, to collect all 

 the materials calculated to throw light on the form or forms called 

 Drepanodon or Machairodus cultridens and latidens, regarding which 

 our information is as yet so limited. 



Professor Owen founds the distinctness of his Machairodus latidens 

 from the Italian Machairodus cultridens, on the proportionately greater 

 breadth of the three English canines found by Mr. McEnery in Kent's 

 Hole. The length of the Italian tooth is 8"5 in., and the breadth of the 

 crown at the base 1*5 in. ; while the corresponding measurements of the 

 English specimen are 6 - and 1*2 in. The breadth of the English tooth 

 ought to be only P06 in., were the proportion to the length the same as in 

 the Italian. Owen says these differences are constant and well marked. 

 But are they sufficient for a distinction of species, or are the materials 

 sufficiently abundant to affirm their constancy ? I think not. In my 

 opinion, the English Machairodus latidens is probably the same as the 

 Italian M. cultridens. 



The only specimens of Machairodus teeth of reputed British origin 

 are, one in the Museum of the Geological Society, one in the Wood- 

 wardian Museum at Oxford, two in the British Museum, and one in 

 the Museum of the Eoyal College of Surgeons. 



1. The specimen in the Geological Society's Museum (No 23,413) 

 is a fine canine of Machairodus latidens, very like the one figured 

 by Owen in the ' British Fossil Mammalia ' (fig. 69, p. 180), but of a 



1 The first paragraph in this memo- 

 randum -was written as an introduction 

 to a description of three carnassier teeth 

 in the Taunton Museum, which the author 

 at first believed to belong to Machairodus, 



but which careful comparison proved to 

 belong to Felis spelaa (see page 455). 

 The remainder is made up of extracts 

 from tho author's Note-books. — [Ed.] 



