﻿]8 



PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



Ectocuneiform, figs. 5, 5'. 



This bone has a wedge-shaped body, the superior surface (fig. 5) forming the head of 

 the wedge, and the inferior or plantar the vertical edge. The flat navicular proximal (figs. 

 5, 5', a) and slightly concave distal metatarsal (figs. 5, 5', 6) articulations are both nearly 

 isosceles triangles. From the inferior surface of the bone a very stout hook-shaped process 

 is developed (fig. 5' c), that advances forwards to terminate in a rounded boss. This 

 hamular process affords attachment to the plantar ligaments that extend to the cuboid and 

 meso- and ectocuneiform, and to the tibialis posticus and Jlexor pollicis muscles. In all 

 the British specimens of the bone that we have seen, the hamular process advances forward 

 within a short distance, from (HO to 0-20 inch of the plane of the distal surface, and in 

 no instance as far as the distal plane. This also is borne out by the examples from the 

 cave of Gailenreuth, in the collection of the Earl of Enniskillen, E.R.S., to whose 

 courtesy we are indebted for the examination of his museum. 



A large series of ectocuneiforms belonging to lions and tigers, in the museums of 

 London and Oxford, shows, as one might naturally expect, considerable variations in the 

 development of the hamular process ; and while we find many ectocuneiforms of lion that 

 cannot, in this or any other respect, be differentiated from those of tiger, yet, on the whole, 

 it has a smaller distal extension in the former than in the latter (fig. 5", c). The maxi- 

 mum distal extension is seen in the specimen of tiger in the British Museum figured 

 fig. 5'", c, in which it extends as far down as the plane of the distal articulation. We 

 must admit, therefore, that while the development of the hamular process in the ecto- 

 cuneiform of Felis spelcea is no absolute test of leonine or tigrine affinities, yet that it 

 points rather in the direction of the former than the latter. 



Measurements. 





Felis spelaa. 



Lion. 



Tiger. 



Bleadon. 



Sandford 

 Hill. 



Col. Surg. 



Br. Mus. 

 112 L. 



W. A. S. 



Br. Mus. 

 114 L. 



Col. Surg. 



1 



2 

 3 

 4 

 5 

 6 



0-83 

 3-95 

 1-05 

 1-05 

 1-08 

 1-36 



0-81 

 3-52 

 0-87 

 1-02 

 0-98 

 1-19 



096 

 400 

 1-00 

 1-04 

 104 

 1-45 



064 

 277 

 0-82 

 0-98 

 0-85 

 100 



070 

 2-90 

 062 

 095 

 0-80 

 1-03 



070 

 3-10 

 0-90 

 0-93 

 0-93 

 111 



080 

 325 

 070 

 094 

 0-90 

 115 



0-74 

 3-05 

 ' 0-80 

 112 

 080 

 1-14 



The specimen figured is the first in the list of measurements, reversed in order to get 

 the most perfect representation on the same side as the rest of the tarsus. 



