﻿88 PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



over the whole dorsal surface of the transverse process, taking its origin from the spine of 

 the axis. The principal office of this muscle is to shake and rotate the head through the 

 medium of the atlas ; it is connected with the tearing and worrying power of the animal. 

 The Hycena spelcea may have had greater leverage, for the transverse process is somewhat 

 longer proportionally ; but the great European lion had far greater surface, owing 

 to the far greater proximo-distal measurement, and the muscle was probably of 

 enormous power. The external angle of the transverse process affords the insertion to 

 the first isosceles and the first scalene ; the first originating on the diapophysis of the axis 

 and the neurapophyses of the four next cervicals ; and the latter on the diapophyses of the 

 five posterior cervicals. These serve as lateral flexors of the head. 



§ 3. Axis. — The only part of the axis which has occurred to us from any British 

 locality is the odontoid process, with the anterior zygapophysis. These closely resemble 

 the same part in lion and tiger, except in size. The odontoid process is longer and more 

 pointed in the genus Felis than in the bear ; but there is no difference that we can 

 describe observable between the zygapophysis in any of the larger carnivora. The 

 proximo-distal length of the neurapophysis offers a means of distinction, it being consider- 

 ably longer in the Felidae than in the Ursidse. 



Fragment from Sandford Hill, at Taunton. 



INCHES. 

 Length of the odontoid process .... T23 

 Width at base of do. do. . . . . 0-90 



Height do. do. do. . . . . 0-90 



Width of anterior zygapophysis .... 3'50 



§ 4. Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh Cervicals. — The remaining cervical verte- 

 bra of the whole of the terrestrial carnivora are remarkably alike. The elliptical section 

 of the centrum (c), with articular epiphyses more or less inclined to the spinal axis, the 

 ample neural arch [n] and large lateral arterial canals, the broad fiat zyapophyses {az, 

 pz), and well-developed and widely spread diapophyses (d), from which descend, in- 

 creasing in depth and complexity of outline from the third to the sixth, the pleurapo- 

 physial plates (pi.), the absence of a vertebral canal in the seventh vertebra, are 

 characters common to the whole of the order; and it is only by a close comparison 

 between the forms which are near to each other in size that they can be effectually 

 differentiated. 



The only cave vertebras that are likely to be confounded with the cervicals of Felis 

 spelcea are those of bear, about the size of large Ursus arctos. 



