﻿FELIS SPEL^EA. 89 



From the ursine cervicals, the following points will be found sufficient to distinguish 

 those of the large Felines. They are generally longer in proportion to width, parti- 

 cularly the third and fourth ; and this is very evident in the broad upper surface of the 

 neurapophyses (n) ; the diapophyses of the third, fourth, and fifth vertebrae are less 

 detached and less angular in section in Felis than in bear, and form a sharper curve 

 upwards, and thus are brought nearer to the zygapophyses. The articular epiphyses of 

 the centrum are more sharply inclined to the spinal axis in Felis, and the inferior border of 

 the pleurapophysis passes from the anterior orifice of the arterial canal backwards, in a 

 more or less gentle sweep in the bear, whereas in Felis it is brought more or less forwards, 

 forming a more or less decided anterior process before passing backwards in a waved 

 sweep to the posterior angle. 



Most of the specimens of these vertebras of Felis spelaa that have passed through 

 our hands are from Bleadon Cave, and are badly crushed and mutilated. We have, 

 however, been able to make out the following — two fourth, one fifth, and one sixth. We 

 have, also, one sixth cervical, which was sufficiently perfect to figure, from Sandford Hill 

 (PI. XIV, figs. 2, 2', 2", 2"'). No specimen of the third or seventh has occurred to us. 



The best specimen of the fourth closely resembles that of a lion, except in size. The 

 centrum is tolerably perfect, with the lateral canals and the greater part of the neurapo- 

 physes, both post- and the right pre-zygapophyses ; but the neural spine and the di- and 

 pleur-apophyses are gone. All its proportions are larger than those in lion. It shows 

 slight evidence of exostosis under the epiphyses, a disease to which, as well as the recent, 

 the fossil carnivora appear to have been subject. The second specimen, which is much less 

 perfect, is about the size of that of ordinary lion. The single fifth from Bleadon, though a 

 good deal crushed, is perfectly recognisable throughout. The centrum with both arterial 

 canals, the right diapophysis with part of its pleurapophysis, and the right neurapophysis 

 with its zygapophysis, are nearly perfect. The rest is broken away. This specimen 

 belonged to an animal quite as large as that indicated by the largest other bones we 

 have met with ; it does not, however, differ in any other recognisable respect from the 

 recent species. 



Of the sixth vertebra, one specimen from Bleadon, much mutilated, agrees exactly 

 with that of a rather large recent lion or tiger. The other, from Sandford Hill, appears, 

 from the texture of the bone, to have belonged to a young but fully adult animal, rather 

 smaller than that to which the atlas we have figured belonged, but still larger than the 

 average lion. Its feline characters are — the somewhat greater antero-posterior length of 

 the neurapophyses (n), when compared with those of the bear ; the anterior edge, which 

 connects the pre-zygapophyses (az), and the diapophyses (d), being well rounded instead 

 of being flattened and angular, as in the bear ; the diapophyses, also, stand more clearly 

 out from the pleurapophyses {pi.), and the ridge forming the inferior edge of this process 

 is directed forwards towards the anterior angle of the pleurapophysis, instead of downwards 

 and backwards to the posterior angle, as in the bear. The anterior border of the pleura- 



