65 



by a truncated muzzle, is supported by a short neck composed of seven 

 cervical vertebrae. These vertebrae are freely articulated together, and are 

 succeeded by sixteen dorsal or costal vertebrae, remarkable for their broad 

 and high spinous processes, which are nearly equal and have an uniform 

 inclination backwards. 



The most extraordinary features which this surface presents are acci- 

 dental to the individual example under consideration, and arise out of two 

 extensive fractures of the skull, which the animal had received some time 

 before its death ; one of these fractures is four inches in length, and ex- 

 tends, in the axis of the skull, across the fronto-maxillary suture near the 

 right orbit. 



The blow has depressed the outer table of the skull, but the fracture is 

 entirely healed and is indicated by the furrows, along which the bone 

 sinks below its natural level into the large frontal sinuses. The surface 

 of the supra-orbital plate, which has participated in the primary injury 

 and been affected by the inflammation consequent thereon, is roughened, 

 and, as it were, eaten into by numerous small vascular grooves and 

 fissures. 



The second fracture is more extensive, and affects the middle of the 

 posterior part of the parietal region of the skull, extending a little way 

 into the occipital region. The outer table of the skull has been smashed 

 in for an extent, of five inches in the long diameter and three inches 

 transversely: several of the bony fragments have exfoliated and left wide 

 irregular apertures leading into the large air sinuses, which are con- 

 tinued from the frontal to the occipital regions. 



The margins of the broken bone, both of the outer table and the ex- 

 posed edges of the vertical sinuous walls, extending between the outer 

 and inner tables, are rounded off by the absorbent action, and are thick- 

 ened irregularly by new ossific depositions, which shoot out in the form 

 of jagged exostoses from the posterior and narrower end of the fractured 

 surface. 



The inner table of the skull has not been injured by the blow which 

 caused such destruction to the outer plate ; and the integrity of the 

 cranial cavity, and the safety of the contained cerebral organ, may be 



K 



