﻿26 



NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA. 



[^fo. 11. 



row vertical bar between eye and ear, white; throat wliite; rest of 

 luuler parts, inchiding fore feet and iuiier sides and distal half of hind 

 feet, pale yellowisli; terminal one-fifth of tail black; rest of tail above 

 and below concolor with back and withont the yellowish tinge which 

 is characteristic of .ranthogenys. 



Cranial cJiaFacters. — Skull similar to that of .ranthogeni/s but larger 

 and decidedly broader. The skull of the type, an adult female, com- 

 pared with skulls of xantliogenys of the same sex and age from south- 

 ern California, differs in the following particulars : Skull everywhere 

 broader; muzzle, palate, interorbital breadth and constriction very 

 much broader; zygomata more spreading. 



Measurements. — Type specimen, female adult: Total length, 412; tail 

 vertebrae, 155; hind foot, 44. 



PUTORIUS FEENATUS (Liclitenstein). Bridled AVeasel. 

 (PI. Ill, Hgs. 1, la, lb, 2.) 



1813. ATustela hrasiUensis Sevastianoff : Mem. Acad. Imp. Sci. St. Petersburg, IV, 

 356-363, Table iv, 1813. (Xame on plate only; diagnosis in text.) Preoc- 

 cupied by Musiela hrasilieusis [an otter] Gmelin, 1788. 



1832. Mustela f rcnata Liclitenstein : Darstellung neuer oder wenig bekannter Sau- 

 getliiere, PI. XLII aud corresponding text (unpaged), 1832. 



1857. Futorius frenatus Baird: Mammals N. Am., 173-176, 1857. 



Type locality. — Y alley of Mexico, near City of Mexico. 



General characters. — Size large; tail long; its black tip relatively 

 short; head black, with consi)icuous white markings. 



Color. — Top of head blackish, interrupted between eye and ear by a 

 broad, whitish band, which is nearlj^ confluent with a patch of same 

 color between the eyes; rest of upper parts brown; a dark spot behind 

 corners of mouth; chin and throat whitish; rest of under i)arts ochra- 

 ceous yellow; forefeet to or above wrists whitish or pale bufiy j^ellow- 

 ish, continuous with and shading into ochraceous of under i^arts; color 

 of under j)arts extending down on inuer side of hind legs and feet to 

 toes, which are whitish or yellowish white. 



Cranial characters. — Skull large and massive, with strongly devel- 

 oped postorbital processes, deep postorbital constriction, marked sagit- 

 tal crest, aud peculiar audital bulla^, which are obliquely truncated 

 anteriorily (the inner side reaching farthest forward) and abruptly 

 highest on inner side, falling away suddenly on outer side so as to 

 form a rounded ridge along the inner side of the longitudinal axis of 

 the bulla. The skull of frenatus resembles that of longicauda, but is 

 considerably larger, and differs in the form of the audital bulke just 

 described, and also in the extent of the i^ostglenoid space, which is 

 much larger than in longicauda. The dentition is heavy and the 

 upper carnassial tooth relatively shorter than in longicauda. The 

 ramus of the under jaw is much more convex inferiorly. 



Eemarlts. — Lichtenstein, in his original descrii)tion of l/i/s^aZa frenata, 

 states that the tail is about one-third longer than that of the European 



