Felis cristata. 

 in. lines. 



Fells Tigris. 

 in. lines. 



, 10 10 



14 1 



8 



9 6 



6 



7 6 



4 10 



6 7 



34 



210. The skull, wanting the lower jaw of the extinct crested Tiger (Felis 

 m'stata, Falconer and Cautley). This completely petrified skull was dis- 

 covered by the collectors employed by Walter Ewer, Esq., of the E. I. 

 Civil Service, at the foot of a sandstone cliff", partly encased in a hard 

 stone matrix, in the tertiary strata of the Sivalik Hills. The sockets of 

 the teeth, some of which contain the fangs, prove that the animal had 

 acquired its full size, and the condition of the sagittal and deltoidal 

 crests indicate that it had arrived at full maturity, if not old age ; yet it 

 is of a smaller size than the common Tiger, as the following dimen- 

 sions show : — 



1. Extreme length from the occipital crest to the alveolar mar- 



gin of the intermaxillaries ...... 



2. Extreme breadth across the zygomatic arches 



3. From the postorbital process to occipital crest 



4. From ditto to alveolar margin of intermaxillaries 



The cranium of the Felis cristata differs from that of the Tiger, as 

 exemplified by the third and fourth admeasurements, in the relative 

 shortness of the facial, compared with the cranial part of the skull ; in 

 which respect it likewise differs, though in a minor degree, as has been 

 pointed out by Messrs. Falconer and Cautley, from the Leopard, the 

 Cheetah, the Puma and the Jaguar. In the truncated extremity of the 

 nasal process of the superior maxillary bone, and the greater backward 

 extension of the nasal bones, the Felis cristata most resembles the Tiger. 

 In size, however, it most nearly approaches the Jaguar, but differs from 

 that and the skulls of other existing felines, in the parallelism of the pos- 

 terior superior contour of the skull with the basal line, and in the greater 

 height of the occipital region, on which the above parallelism depends. 

 It is characterized likewise by the saliency of the sagittal crest, from 

 which the specific name of the fossil is derived ; and likewise by the 

 elevated position and the strongly arched outline of the inferior margin 

 of the zygomatic arche9. 



Presented by Trailer Eiver, Esq., F.R.S. 



