CANIS. 9 
eribed by Lydekker' in his ‘Catalogue of the Fossil Mammalia in the British 
Museum.’ The feature upon which he principally relies in the attribution of this 
specimen to the genus Lycaon is the presence of a ‘ distinct anterior talon” to the 
fourth premolar. There is no doubt that an anterior cusp is very distinctly 
present in this specimen (see PI. V, figs. 7, 8); and in a large series of wolf- 
skulls in the British Museum no specimen was found showing any comparable 
development, though in certain cases, e.g. the skull of a wolf from Kandahar 
(168a) and a North American example (165d), slight indications of an anterior 
cusp occur. But on the other hand pm. 2 and 3 of the Spritsail Tor specimen 
are identical with those of the wolf, being considerably longer in proportion to the 
height of the crown than are the corresponding teeth in any of the skulls of 
Lycaon examined in the British Museum; pm. 4, too, agrees precisely in the 
characters of its main lobe and posterior cusps with the corresponding tooth of 
the wolf, and differs considerably from the Lycaon type. In view of the known 
variability in the teeth of Canide and of the difficulties of geographical distribution 
involved in the addition of a southern form like Lycaon to the British faunal list, 
it seems the most satisfactory course, on the whole, to regard the Spritsail Tor 
specimen as a somewhat abnormal wolf. 
TABLE SHOWING DiIstriBuTION oF British PLEISTOCENE CANIDA IN RIVER 
DEPOSITS, ETC. 
| Wolf. Fox. Arctic 
Bellbeches me VOnk Serer nas ee ai kese catia deinen eee eet x 
pa ae RS HDISISYS) ©: ai ta nee ee rere ME ee. Saas x Ses 
Dartford | Loe aca eRe er Need Ranta ncroedrkaeocaan en oa: x 
Fisherton, Salisbury 
ec “6 pee en | 
| Murston, Sittingbourne . 
Newbury ......... a rh PRE Ae re Se ee aE EE 
Slade Green, near ‘Erith - eee RR EET eC 
| Tee 
Thame . FS SACRED ARO GORE Lat oor eee nce on Manes ace 
eon s.-mare | 
mS, oS ON OS OS OS US 28 2 
x 
1 «Catalogue of the Fossil Mammalia in the British Museum,’ pt. i, p. 122, 1885. 
bo 
