74 EINAR LONNLEEG, MAMMALS COLLECTED BY THE SWEDISH ZOOLOGICAL EXPEDITION ETC. 



Felis leo somaliensis Noack. 



Noach: Mitt. Naturhist. Mus. Hamburg IX Jahrg. 1891, p. 48. 



North of Guaso Nyiri in the thornbush country I had the opportunity of shoot- 

 ing a male Lion with rather strongly worn incisors 'Va 1911. This specimen belongs 

 evidently to the Somali-race. Its general colour is pale yellowish grey, whitish below. 

 The lips and chin are whitish. There is a whitish spot above and below the eye. 

 Most of the whiskers are pure white but some of the smaller on the upper lip are 

 black. With the exception of the parts mentioned the face is sprinkled with dark brown. 

 The mane is short the hair averaging about 10 cm., and it does not extend back- 

 wards beyond the neck. It is pale buff around the ears and on the sides of the fore- 

 neck, forming a blackish brown crest along the upper neck and shading into dull 

 brown on the sides of the hind neck. Along the back is a fine sprinkling of black, 

 and on the posterior surface of the lower hams a blackish ill-defined streak. There are 

 no spots except some few small ones on the inside of the hind legs. On the feet 

 a few indistinct whitish stripes are seen. The tail is more sprinkled with black on 

 the upper side than the back, and this increases to the short black tuft. 



The length of head and body of this Lion was about 180 cm. measured in a 

 straight line, and the tail whithout hair 82 cm. These measurements agree nearly 

 with those recorded by Matschie. 



The dimensions of the skull are as follows: 



Maximum length of skull . . 336 mm. 



Condylobasal length . 308 » 



Basal length 287,5 » 



Zygomatic breadth • 218 » 



Interorbital breadth 72,5 » 



Least postorbital width 61 » 



Width of platal opening at aut. palatopterygoidea 32 » 



Distance between bullae in front 28 » 



» » tips of postorbital processes 98,3 j 



Length of p* 35 » 



The Somali Lion is perhaps the smallest race of its kind, and it may therefore 

 be of interest to compare its skull with that of the largest race of Lion, F. leo 

 capensis (Fisch), and for this purpose I have selected a fine male specimen shot by 

 the famous Swedish explorer J. F. Wahlbeeg in »Caffraria interiore» 1845. The maxi- 

 mum length of this skull is 395 mm., its condylobasal length 340 mm. and its basal 

 length 32,1 mm. Already by comparing these measurements with those above the 

 remarkable difference in size is clearly understood, and also that the occipital crest 

 extends further backwards beyond the condyles in the South African Lion (55 

 mm.) than in the Somali Lion (28 mm.) Even in male skulls of F. leo sabaUensis, 

 which I saw in Nairobi, the occipital crest appeared more developed than in F. leo 



