﻿M8 PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



CHAPTER XL 

 Femur, PI. XVIII, figs. 4, 5. 



CONTENTS. 



§ 1. Introduction. 

 § 2. Description. 



§ 3. Measurements. 

 § 4. Definition. 



§ 1. Introduction. — The femur of Felis spelaa very closely resembles that of the Lion 

 and Tiger, and, so far as we can judge from the fragments, it bore the same proportion to 

 the pelvis and tibia that it does in those two animals, being much longer than the tibia, 

 a proportion that is reversed in the smaller felines. As we have met with no perfect 

 spelaean femur in Britain, we have adopted the same artifice as in the humerus. We have 

 used as the groundwork of our figure the cast of a perfect spelaean femur from Gailen- 

 reuth Cave, the original of which is in the collection of Sir Philip Egerton, E.R.S. It is 

 drawn in a light tint. In a somewhat darker tint we have represented a large portion of 

 the shaft of a British specimen, and in full tint a considerable portion of the head, which, 

 equally with the above, exactly corresponds in size with the cast, and a distal end which 

 is rather smaller, and in this way we have built up the bone from fragments found in 

 Britain. A small portion of a still larger distal end and the entire distal end of a smaller 

 specimen are with others in the Taunton Museum. They are all from Bleadon Cavern. 

 Since the figure was drawn we have found a nearly perfect shaft in the Jermyn Street 

 Museum, obtained from the brickearth of Hartlip, in Kent, and slightly smaller than the 

 specimen from Gailenreuth. A very fine specimen also of the shaft, slightly smaller than 

 the femur from Gailenreuth and that from Bleadon, which we figure, has been found in 

 the gravels of Barnwell, a suburb of Cambridge, and is preserved in the British 

 Museum. 



§ 2. Description. — The head (fig. 4, a a) of the bone is hemispherical, and larger than 

 the neck, which it overhangs distally (fig. 4, a). On its postero-internal surface is a very 

 shallow depression, much less strongly marked than in most animals, for the ligamentum 

 teres. The neck connecting the head with the shaft is short and massive, and resembles 



