1870 Quadrupeds. 



monkeys had changed since Goldsmith's day, inasmuch as at that time, as we are in- 

 formed, the tip of a monkey's tail was so remote from the centre of circulation as to 

 be destitute of feeling." — l A Voyage up the Amazon.'' 



The tivo supposed British Species of Marten identical. — " There are said to be two 

 kinds of martens here, the pine-marten and the beech-marten ; the former having a 

 yellow mark on the breast, and the latter a white one. I do not, however, believe that 

 they are of a distinct species, but consider the variety of shade in the colour of the breast 

 to be occasioned by difference of age, or to be merely accidental, having frequently 

 killed them in the same woods with every intermediate shade from yellow to white on 

 their breasts ; the animals being perfectly alike in every other particular. The oldest- 

 looking martens had generally a whiter mark than the others, but this rule did not 

 apply to all." — * Wild Sports in the Highlands,' p. 107. 



Discrepancy in the Colour of Seals. — " Scarcely any two seals are exactly of the 

 same colour, or marked quite alike, and seals frequenting a particular part of the 

 coast become easily known and distinguished from each other." — Id. p. 226. 



Supposed New British Seal. — The specimen in reference to which the following 

 remarks are made was captured in the Orwell River, on the 29th of June, 1847. It 

 was purchased by G. Ransome, Esq., and presented to the Ipswich Museum. Upon 

 comparing it with descriptions of the Phocidse in Professor Bell's • History of British 

 Quadrupeds,' we found it not to correspond with the characters of any of the species 

 therein noticed, which induces us to regard it as one entirely new to the shores of 

 Britain. In colour it is of a uniform dark gray upon the upper parts of the body, be- 

 coming darker over the tarsal joint of the posterior extremities, the under parts being 

 of a yellowish-white ; irides dark reddish-brown. It measured about 3 feet 4 inches 

 in girth, by 4 feet 4 inches in length. 



Fig. 1 represents the skull, in which the orbits are observed to be very capacious : 

 the anterior and inner margin being bounded by a line drawn perpendicularly down- 

 wards from the anterior extremity of the nasal bones, they will therefore be found to 

 bear a greater proportion to, and encroach more upon, the superior maxillary bones, 

 than the same parts in any of the figures given in Professor Bell's work. 



Fig. 3 represents the palatine aspect of the skull, with the view of displaying the 

 general arrangement of the teeth in the upper jaw. Considerable latitude of motion 

 existed between the two inferior maxillary bones, and after careful maceration the 

 bones displayed a very imperfect junction at the symphysis ; the articulating surfaces 

 being smooth and convex : the left inferior maxillary bone is quite perfect, and dis- 

 plays a single cavity for the reception of one incisor tooth; the bone of the right side 

 is a little broken at the corresponding part, where a cavity for an incisor tooth may 

 have existed. The dental formula in the present specimen appears to be as follows, 

 — incisors f f, canines \ {, molars § f. 



Fig. 4 is a front view, showing the disposition of the incisors and canines in the 

 upper jaw. The specimen is evidently very young, as indicated by the condition of 

 the bones ill general, and by the teeth being very imperfectly fixed in their cavities. 



All the teeth have but a single fang, except the posterior one on each side in the 

 upper jaw, which has two : the fangs of all the teeth are tubular, open at their ex- 

 tremity, and were filled by a vascular pulp. — W. B. Clarke ; 14, Berner's Street, Ips- 

 wich, August Uth, 1847* 



* Reprinted from a private paper : the figures are necessarily omitted.-— Ed. 



