﻿PELIS SPEL^A. 33 



and in this case the result has been very great difficulty and risk in taking his work to 

 pieces and articulating the skull for scientific purposes. After such rough usage the 

 exactness of fit of the component parts and the symmetry have been to some extent lost. 

 We have figured the skull as it stands now free from plaster, without attempting a 

 restoration which very possibly might have been erroneous, and which certainly could 

 have served no scientific end. The specimen retains a small piece of each nasal in situ, 

 and a large part of the right palatine. The right maxillary is all but perfect, with a 

 small portion of the left. The right intermaxillary also is in part present. The only 

 teeth remaining are the large premolars (four), and a portion of the right canine. Both 

 premolars are nearly perfect, together with the left squamosal and a large part of the right, 

 so that we can form an adequate idea of the size and form of the zygoma ticarch. The 

 frontal bones are present, but their supra-orbital processes are much abraded. The left 

 tympanic bulla is much broken, and the right is almost entirely gone. The basi- sphenoid 

 is all but gone, and only the lower and posterior portions of the ali-sphenoid are left 

 attached to the lower part of the ali-sphenoids and the squamosals. Both mastoids are 

 imperfect. The basi-occipital is present, but the exoccipitals are abraded, and the supra- 

 occipital is gone ; and of the par-occipitals, only the left fossa remains. 



In addition, we figure in PI. XI the maxillaries and intermaxillaries of another 

 specimen from Sandford Hill Cave, which is also from Mr. Beard's collection. It is of 

 very large size, and exhibits the perfect adult dentition, with the exception of the small 

 tubercular upper true molars, the small premolars (two), and one first incisor. We also 

 give a figure of the articular portion of the squamosal of a gigantic animal from Bleadon 

 Cave (PL IX, figs. 2 and 3). 



Besides the skulls we figure, we have examined a large number of fragments, which 

 are for the most part in the Taunton Museum, as well as the nearly perfect specimen 

 from the Sundwig Cave, in Westphalia, now in the British Museum ; from it are absent 

 the greater part of the zygomatic arches, a portion of the left palatine, the pterygoid pro- 

 cesses, the upper part of the supra-occipital, and two thirds of the nasals, the left orbito- 

 sphenoid, together with the adjoining part of the frontal, the ethmoid, and the vomer. 

 We have also examined the specimen figured by Professor Owen and Mr. Scharf from 

 Kent's Hole, and a similar fragment from Muggendorf, now in the British Museum, and 

 another like it from Ravenscliff in Gower, in the possession of Colonel Wood. These 

 constitute the materials which we have at hand for writing this chapter on the skull of 

 Felis spelcea. We shall compare the spelaean skull bone by bone with that of the living 

 species most closely allied to it, that is, lion and tiger, beginning with the basi- 

 occipital. 



% 2. Basi-occipital. (Pis. VIII, IX. No. 1). — The basi-occipital forms the 

 posterior portion of the base of the skull, and is regarded as the centrum of the occipital 

 vertebra by all who hold the " vertebral theory." Prom the slight bulging of the sides it 



