LEPUS 231 



length, the hinder being conspicuously large and strong, and 

 with four digits ; the shorter fore limbs have five. The tail is 

 always present, but is short and recurved. The soft fur is, as 

 described above (p. 162), composed of three kinds of hairs ; it is 

 so dense on the soles of the feet as almost to hide the claws. 



The intestine is long, with a large caecum. 



The skull is strongly arched, and distinguishable from that 

 of other allied genera by its breadth, which shows itself speci- 

 ally in the brain-case, rostrum, and nasals, the two latter being 

 also short. There are no alisphenoid canals. 



The superciliary processes of the frontals are well developed 

 as large, wide, triangular structures, with one angle attached to 

 the skull, and the other two usually quite free. They stand 

 out from the side of the head, and are considerably arched from 

 before backwards. Between the free angles and the skull there 

 are usually large notches, the posterior being the larger ; but 

 occasionally an angle may be so directed inwards that its apex 

 meets the frontal bone and forms a foramen instead of a notch. 



The interparietal bone, although present in the very young, 

 becomes obliterated in the adult (see Fig. 33, p. 174); 



The bony palate is short, arid reduced to a mere narrow 

 bridge with its transverse breadth greater than its least antero- 

 posterior length ; the length is distinctly less than the width 

 of either the posterior nares or the coalesced incisive foramina, 

 both of which form wide apertures. About four-fifths of the 

 palatal bridge are formed by the maxillaries, and only one-fifth 

 by the palatine bones. 



The sides of the maxillary bones are fenestrated. 



The zygomatic arches are well developed, deep but thin, 

 and are thickened anteriorly so as to form massive buttresses 

 projecting at right angles from the maxillary walls. Each is 

 composed chiefly of the malar bone, which, however, fuses at 

 an early age with a small zygomatic process of its maxilla, of 

 which it afterwards has the appearance of being a long back- 

 wardly ■ directed process, with its extremity projecting behind 

 and below the zygomatic process of the squamosal. The latter 

 is a triangular, foot-like structure carried on a narrow stalk ; 

 it articulates with the malar by means of a suture, which 

 persists through life, and is only about half the length of the 



