﻿CANIS. 9 



cribed by Lydekker J in his ' Catalogue of the Fossil Mammalia in the British 

 Museum.' The feature upon which he principally relies in the attribution of this 

 specimen to the genus Lycaon is the presence of a " distinct anterior talon " to the 

 fourth premolar. There is no doubt that an anterior cusp is very distinctly 

 present in this specimen (see PI. V, figs. 7, 8) ; and in a large series of wolf- 

 skulls in the British Museum no specimen was found showing any comparable 

 development, though in certain cases, e. g. the skull of a wolf from Kandahar 

 (168a) and a North American example (165d), slight indications of an anterior 

 cusp occur. But on the other hand pm. 2 and 3 of the Spritsail Tor specimen 

 are identical with those of the wolf, being considerably longer in proportion to the 

 height of the crown than are the corresponding teeth in any of the skulls of 

 Lycaon examined in the British Museum ; pm. 4, too, agrees precisely in the 

 characters of its main lobe and posterior cusps with the corresponding tooth of 

 the wolf, and differs considerably from the Lycaon type. In view of the known 

 variability in the teeth of Canidse and of the difficulties of geographical distribution 

 involved in the addition of a southern form like Lycaon to the British faunal list, 

 it seems the most satisfactory course, on the whole, to regard the Spritsail Tor 

 specimen as a somewhat abnormal wolf. 



Table shoaving Distribution of British Pleistocene Canid^e in River 



Deposits, etc. 



Wolf. 



Arctic 

 Fox. 



Beilbecks, Torks 



Bracklesham, Sussex 



Crayf ord 



Dartford 



Fisherton, Salisbury 



Grays 



Ilford 



Ipswich 



Murston, Sittingboume 



Newbury 



Slade G-reen, near Erith 



Tewkesbury 



Thame 



"Weston- s. -mare 



Windsor 



Catalogue of the Fossil Mammalia in the British Museum,' pt. i, p. 122, 1885. 



