1847.] On the Tibetan Badger. 707 



massive and weighty, and describes a gentle unifrom curve from end to 

 end of the culmen : facial portion very small : frontal and cerebral very 

 ample : orbits incomplete posteally : a single very large foramen before 

 them : parietes tumid : longitudinal and transverse cristse moderate : 

 lower jaw very strong, and so completely locked in the cylindric hinge 

 manner, as to be with difficulty separated. Many of these are general cha- 

 racters of the scull in the Badgers proper (Meles), and are also found, 

 for the most part, in Ursitaxus, Urva and Melictis. But the teeth are 

 more strictly characteristic. They are in number f. \:\. ±:± .=32, 

 as in the Ursitax ; but, whereas in the Bearbadgers the upper tubercu- 

 lar tooth is disposed transversely and is inferior in size to the carnas- 

 sier, in the more strictly Melean form of Taxidia, the tubercular is 

 ranged in line with the other molars, and is so large as to equal in size 

 not merely the carnassier, but it and the two false molars before it. 

 The first molar of the Tibetan badger is small with a single acutely 

 conic process ; the next is larger but of the same form. These two are 

 false molars. The third is the carnassier. It is of trigonal shape, 

 and as much larger than the greater false molar as it is less than the 

 tubercular. Its exterior side is trechant, obtusely conoid (in profile) 

 and compressed : the other two sides include a flattened oblique 

 grinding surface or internal heel. The fourth and last tooth of the 

 upper jaw is the great tubercular. It is of a squarish shape, but longer 

 than broad, and has its crown marked by 3 longitudinal ridges with 

 two furrows between them. Of these ridges the exterior one only is 

 slightly trenchant and has a saddle-like dip in its centre. The two 

 other ridges are nearly or quite rounded. The posterior margin has 

 an oblique flat slope, purely triturant, upon which the little flat tuber- 

 cular of the lower jaw grinds with its whole surface. In the lower jaw 

 the two first molars bear much the same character as those above, but 

 are rather larger and have tiny heel-like processes before and behind 

 the central cone. These teeth are also slightly compressed. The 

 third or carnassial tooth is long and narrow, equal in size to all the 

 three others of the jaw, and exhibits a central dip or groove receiving 

 the central ridge of the tubercular of the upper jaw, while its two sides, 

 which are brokenly ridged, fall into the two grooves of the same tooth 

 and its anterior part, consisting of three irregular cones, acts trenchant- 

 ly against the cutting part of the upper carnassier, or grinds against 



