] 900.] OS REMAINS OF CYON FROM SARDINIA. 833 



in the Natural History Museum ; there is in the Cambridge 

 Zoological Museum a cubitus from the same locality and apparently 

 of the same species. My purpose in exhibiting them is to draw 

 attention to the fact, in the hope that more characteristic remains 

 will turn up. 



A species of Macacus, said to be M. cynomolgus, is living in a 

 wild state at Mauritius. According to I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire's 

 Catalogue of Primates (pp. 26 & 29), the remains of two species 

 of Macacus from Mauritius, M. sinicus and M. eynomolgus, are in 

 the Paris Natural History Museum. A. Newton, in his 'Dictionary 

 of Birds ' (p. 215, footn. 1) states the Mauritius Monkey to be the 

 Macacus pileatus from Ceylon. 



I have not succeeded in determining accurately the few bones 

 from the Mare aux Songes ; all I can say for the present is that 

 they belong to a species of Macacus which is not M. eynomolgus. 



Monkeys have been known to exist in the Mauritius since 1627- 

 28 at least, and were, it seems, supposed to have been introduced 

 there by the Portuguese, as mentioned in the following passage in 

 Sir Thomas Herbert's Travels : " The He (i. e. Mauritius) affoords 

 us withall Goats, Hogges, Beeves and Kine, land Tortoyses (so great 

 that the}' will creepe with two mens burthens, and serue more for 

 sport, then seruice or solemne Banquet), Bats and Monkeyes, all 

 of which becomes food to such ships as anchor here. They were 



first brought hither by the Portugal! " (Th. Herbert, A 



Belation of some Teares Travaile, Begunne Anno 1626. Into Afri- 

 que and the greater Asia London, 1634, p. 213.) 



Dr. Forsyth Major made the following remarks on remains 

 of Cyon sardous (Studiati) from a cave at Capo Caccia (N."W. 

 Sardinia) : — 



The mandible of a member of the Canidas here exhibited has 

 been communicated to me, together with other Pleistocene Verte- 

 brates from Sardinia, by Professor D. Lovisato, of the University 

 of Cagliari, who for years has been exploring the fossiliferous 

 deposits of Sardinia with characteristic energy and at considerable 

 personal sacrifice. 



In the absence of the posterior part of the ramus, whereby it 

 must be left undecided whether a third true molar was present 

 or not, the determination of this fossil rests chiefly on the con- 

 formation of the talon of the lower carnassial, which is unicuspid 

 and trenchant, whereas in Canis it is composed in the main of a 

 stronger outer and a lesser inner tubercle. 



Amongst recent Canidae, three genera exhibit the trenchant 

 conformation of the lower carnassial's talon ; viz., the South- 

 American Icticyon, the African Lycaon, and the Central and South- 

 east Asiatic Cyon. There are no a priori grounds why such a 

 feature might not be independently developed in various forms. 

 As to Icticyon, Lund, Huxley, and Winge have insisted upon its 

 close relation in oth^r characters to the other South-American 



