52 PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



for the elevation of the hp; and within this to the wide thin "canine," wliich takes part in 

 the same office. 



The malar bone presents no point of specific difference in lion, tiger, and Felis 

 spelcea ; a comparison of upwards of one hundred skulls having convinced us that the cha- 

 racter of greater depth in the latter than the two former animals, insisted upon by 

 MM. Cuvier and Goldfuss, is not of specific value. The sub-orbital process, however, 

 appears to be set rather farther backwards in the majority of leonine skulls than in those 

 of the tiger, so that the orbit is wider and rounder in the former than the latter animal. 

 In this point Felis spelaea certainly agrees with the lion. 



In the recent animal the whole orbit is surrounded by a strong deep ligament, resting 

 on its edge, which renders it deeper and more complete. 



§ 13. Lachri/mal (Vh. VI, VII, X, No. 73). — The lachrymal bone occupies the anterior 

 border of the orbit, and is articulated in front to the maxillary, behind to the frontal, 

 below to the palatine, maxillary, and malar bones. It is a flat plate, of irregular form, 

 varying from triangular to quadrilateral. Its greater part is within the orbit in the 

 larger Feles, but the small portion adjoining the frontal process of the maxillary is con- 

 tinuous with the external surface of the skull. At its superior angle is the palpebral 

 tuberosity [u) for the insertion of the palpebral muscle, and below it is the lachrymal 

 foramen {v), sometimes excavated in the lachrymal, at others lying in the lachrymo- 

 maxillary suture that runs downwards into the nasal cavity. The internal surface of the 

 bone is ridged for articulation with a branch of the ethmoid. The sutures vary in direction 

 according to the shape of the bone. In old animals they are almost entirely obliterated ; 

 a small fiat bone, " os planum," is sometimes, though rarely, intercalated in Eelis at 

 the infero-internal angle. There is no appreciable difference in the shape of this bone in 

 tiger, lion, and Felis spelcea. 



§ 14. Ethmoid. — It cannot be expected that any large part of so fragile a bone as the 

 ethmoid can be preser\'ed in the fossil state ; but as an important part occurs in one of our 

 specimens, we describe the bone in the lion and tiger. In the genus Felis the ethmoid 

 fills the great facial cavity, and may be considered as consisting of a central plate flanked 

 on either side by a highly convoluted mass of bone, and a transverse vertical plate. 

 The former is vertical, and firmly articulated to the ethmoidal spine of the pre- 

 sphenoid, as well as to the vertical plate which divides the ethmoidal sinuses ; it 

 rests on the vomer ; it is also articulated to the median nasal crest of the symphysis 

 of the frontal bones, and passes more than half way towards the anterior end of the 

 nostrils. It is considered by Professor Huxley^ as the continuation of the basis cranii 



' Troc. l^oyul Society,' No. 33, " Croonian Lecture," 1858, p. 433. 



