﻿PELIS SPELiEA. 63 



tion between the two animals already described in our section on the palatals we are also 

 unable to admit. 3. The occipital portion of the skull is often narrower and more sigmoid 

 in the tiger than in the lion. 4. The posterior nares are also generally narrower. 5. This 

 observation may also be made concerning the basi-occipital and basi-sphenoid. 6. The 

 size of the sub-orbital foramen and thickness of the arch dividing it from the orbit, which 

 is greater in tiger and Felis spelaa than in lion, are not characters of great importance, for 

 both are very variable in the latter animal : in the Asiatic lion the foramen is sometimes 

 double. 7. The depth of the zygomatic arch insisted on by several anatomists we find 

 so variable, that we cannot regard it as any guide whatever in the determination of feline 

 skulls. 



We can now proceed to the application of these characters to the settlement of the 

 question of the leonine or the tigrine affinities of Felis spelaa. The smaller Taunton skull 

 which we figure, and which probably from the size of the canines was that of a female, so 

 closely resembles that of a lion of average size, that we cannot detect any difference 

 whatever. It differs from every tiger's skull which has passed through our hands, not 

 only in the characters, but also in the tendencies, with the exception only of the size of the 

 sub-orbital foramen and the thickness of the arch separating it from the orbit. The 

 smaller skull also from Sundwig, though it shows an approach to the tiger in some of its 

 tendencies, in all the characters is decidedly leonine. Besides these spelaean skulls, there 

 are the larger and less perfect ones. We have shown that these differ in no respect 

 except size, from the average leonine skull ; while, whenever those parts remain in which 

 constant differences may be looked for, they differ invariably from tiger and agree with 

 lion. With regard to differences which have been cited by other naturalists, we have not 

 been able to detect the " museau renfle" of the French anatomists in either the English or 

 German specimens. In comparing animals of the same size, the muzzle in no respect 

 differs from that of the lion ; but we have observed, that the shortness and width of the 

 muzzle varies directly in proportion to the size of the animal. We have had no means of 

 examining the pterygoid processes or the anterior ends of the nasals in Felis spelaa, and 

 we cannot consequently apply M. de Blainville's distinctions founded on these parts to that 

 animal. 



With regard to size, the measurements given by Cuvier of the largest skull of lion 

 passed through his hands closely agree with those of the most perfect of the large Taunton 

 specimens. The maxillaries figured in PI. XI are somewhat larger, but they differ in no 

 other respects from those belonging to the more perfect skulls. Aristotle, in his ' Natural 

 History,' gives the large size of the Thessalian lion as a characteristic. In Pleistocene 

 times, before man had increased and multiplied on the earth, the abundance of food and 

 the great range were more favorable to the more powerful and larger breeds of animals, 

 while now the necessity for agility and concealment, caused by man's disturbing influence 

 in the animal world, would favour the smaller. We cannot therefore expect the largest of 



