396 



THE OSTEOLOGY OF YULPES MACROTIS. 



animal. 2 At this time the National Museum does not possess a skeleton of 

 either V. velox or V. macrotis, although there are skeletons of other foxes in the 

 collections. 



It is not the object of the present memoir to enter in detail into the subject of 

 the position of the Canidse in the system, much less to make an exhaustive com- 

 parison of the skeletons of the genus Vulpes, although that would be an excellent 

 task to accomplish. Unfortunately the material is not at hand at the present 

 writing to carry out either of these projects, so the best that can be done at this 

 writing is to offer as complete an account of the skeleton of Vulpes macrotis as 

 possible ; then naturalists in the future, better supplied with material, will be able 

 to utilize this contribution in their researches. 



Flower, in his Osteology of the Mammalia, has truly said that a " perfect 

 arrangement of any group of animals can only be attained simultaneously 

 with a perfect knowledge of their structure and life-history. We are still so far 

 from this that any classification now advanced must be regarded as provisional, and 

 merely representing our present state of knowledge. Moreover, as naturalists will 

 estimate differently the importance to be attached to different structural modifica- 

 tions as indicative of affinity, it must be long before there will be any general 

 agreement upon this subject." It is now about twenty years ago since Professor 

 Flower penned those words, and they are quite as true to-clay as the day he wrote 

 them. Several years afterwards, in his masterly contribution to the ninth edition 

 of the Encyclop&dia Brita7inica, on the Mammalia, he recognizes a Section 

 Cynoidea of the Carnivora, in which the single family Canidae is placed, to contain 

 all of the " dog-like animals," they holding, as this eminent authority seemed to 

 think, " an intermediate position between the other two sections (iElur6idea and 

 Arctpidea), retaining also many of the more generalized characters of the ancient 

 members of the order. The structure of the auditory bulla and adjacent parts of 

 the bones of the skull is quite intermediate between that of the ^Eluroid and 

 Arctoid forms. In the number and arrangement of the teeth they more nearly 

 approach the primitive heterodont type than any other existing Carnivora." 



Flower divided the family Canidae into two series, with several genera in each, 

 — thus : 



Family. Series. 



r 



A. — Thooid or Lupine Series. 



B. — Alopecoid or Vulpine Serie 



Genera. 



Canis. 



Cyon. 



Lycalopex. 



Nyctereutes. 



icticyon. 



Vulpes. 



Fennecus. 



Lycaon, 



Otocyon. 



It was Professor Huxley, in his memoir On the Dental Characters of the 



2 No. 15,355, Coll. U. S. Nat. Mus. 



