SHUFELDT SKULL OF BADGER 
175 
Viewed upon its facial aspect, the cranium of this old badger presents 
the usual musteline characters of its genus. The infraorbital foramen 
is large and of different outline in the two skulls here being compared, 
as in the aged badger its outer arc is curved, to be angulated in the 
larger skull. 
Upon anterior view, the narial aperture is always seen to be large 
and oval in outline in a badger, the long axis being mesial and vertical. 
The ethmoidal bones are extremely complicated and spongy, extending 
far forwards in this aged badger, and being far back in the skull here 
shown in figure 2. Vomer is to some extent incomplete. 
One of the best evidences of great age in the skull here being described 
is the condition of its dental armature, most of the incisor teeth being 
lost, others broken, and the remainder all worn — worn down to an 
extent never before observed by me in any ferine mammal. As these 
teeth stand, however, it is very evident that, in the matter of the 
formula, they agreed originally with that of Taxidea taxus. 
Beyond the extraordinary wearing away of the teeth, the mandible 
of our subject essentially agrees in all of its characters with what we 
find in the lower jaw of our common badger — the position and number 
of foramina having no weight. It is not permanently locked at its 
articulations in the glenoid fossae. Beyond the evidences of great 
age, the characters seen at the basis cranii are typically taxidean, an 
apparent shrinkage of the auditory bullce alone constituting any marked 
difference. 
Washington, D, C, 
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGT, VOL. IH, NO. 3 
