62 MR. E. LYDEKKER ON THE OCCURRENCE OF THE 



5. On the Occurrence of the Striped Hy.t.na in the Tertiary of the 

 Val d'Arno. By R. Lydekker, Esq., B.A., P.G.S., &c. (Read 

 November 20, 1889.) 



In cataloguing the remains of fossil Carnivora preserved in the 

 British Museum *, I entered, under the head of Hycpna striata, a por- 

 tion o£ the lei't maxilla of a hyaena obtained by the late Mr. Pent- 

 land from the Tertiary deposits of the Val d'Arno, in Tuscany. 

 At that time I had no evidence of the existence of this species in 

 the Pliocene, and the specimen was accordingl)' provisionally re- 

 garded as of Pleistocene age, since beds of that epoch are known to 

 occur in the Yal d'Arno. At a later date I again referred to this 

 specimen in a paper read before the Society on May 12th, 1886 t, 

 and concluded that it might be from beds of Upper Pliocene age. 

 In the same communication I also described and figured a right 

 upjier carnassial of a hycena from the Red Crag, which was likewise 

 referred to the existing Striped Hyaena {H. striata). Polio wing, 

 however, the lead of Professor A. Gaudry, I was at that time dis- 

 posed to regard H. arvernensis, of the Upper Pliocene of the 

 Auvergne, as nothing more than a large variety of H. striata. It 

 was also considered that the premolars from the Red Crag, described 

 as H. antiqua, were in all probabihty referable to the same exist- 

 ing species. 



In a recent memoir on the fossil Hyaenas of the Yal d'Arno, Dr. 

 K. A. Weithofer J, who a^Dpears to have had the opportunity of ex- 

 amining actnal specimens, concludes that H. arvernensis is entitled 

 to raiak as a valid species. Thus it is much larger than H. striata., 

 while the inner tuloercle of the upj)er carnassial is directed more 

 anteriorly, so that the width of this tooth across the tubercle is 

 much less in proportion to its length than in the Striped Hyaena, 

 and the hind talon and inner cusp of the lower carnassial are rela- 

 tively smaller than in the latter. 



In noticing the carnassial from the Red Crag, figured by myself 

 in the paper already quoted, and referred to H. striata, Dr. 

 AVeithofer § accepts my determination, although, of course, imply- 

 ing that its identification with H. arvernensis is erroneous. When, 

 however, Dr. Weithofcr li comes to speak of the specimen from the 

 Val d'Arno, which I have referred to H. striata, he states that all 

 the specimens from the Pliocene beds of that locality which have 

 come under his notice are more nearly allied to the Crocutine group, 



* Cat. Foss. Mamm. Brit. Mus. pt. i. p. 88 (18S.5). 



t Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. aoI. xlii. p. ;?64 (1886). 



X Denksdir. k. Ak. Wien, vol. Iv. p. 341 (1889). 



§ Oj). cif. p. 344. The -words are: — "Lydekker bildet aus deni Red Crag 

 eineii oberen Eeisszabn einer Hyiine ab den man allerdingj< — fiir sicb allein — 

 als init H. fitriata identisch erklareu uiuss." 



11 Op. cit. p. 340. 



