VULPES YULPES. 
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VULPES. 
Vulpes, Fleming, Hist. Brit. Anim. 1828, p. 13. 
The Foxes are very nearly related to the Dogs, and are generally included in the genus 
Canis. That they should be separated is certainly desirable, but in studying the genus 
in its wide sense, including the whole of the Dogs and Foxes of the world, the line of 
demarcation will be found very difficult to define. As already mentioned under Canis, 
Dr. Blanford, following Desmarest and Fleming, gives characters which, if found 
constant, will form a sufficient distinction between the two groups. Thus the pupil of 
the eye in Vulpes is vertically elliptical in a strong light, and there are only six 
mammae. Dentition as in Canis. 
The skull is generally much flattened; the maxillary portion of the zygoma is 
expanded so that the inner surface below the orbit faces upwards. 
Tail-gland generally strongly developed. 
Vulpes vulpes, Linn. 
Canis vulpes et alopex, Linn. Syst. Nat. x. i. 1758, p. 40. 
On the Bed Foxes in general, from material contained in the British Museum. 
The skulls of the Scottish, South German, and Tuscany foxes belong all to one 
type, and are distinguished from the skull of the Nile Valley form by the somewhat 
greater arching of the forehead. In the skull of a Genoese fox this arching is less, 
and also in the skull of a fox from Sardinia. These two skulls are very slightly 
broader across the zygomata than the three first-mentioned skulls, which in their turn 
are a little broader and heavier than the skulls of Egyptian foxes. The latter are 
distinguished by the long, narrow, and more pointed character of their muzzles, and 
by the mesial area of the skull posterior to the nasals being but feebly, if at all, 
arched. The concavity or depression, however, at the middle of the nasals varies 
considerably, and in a fine old skull collected in Egypt by Dr. Hedenborg (British 
Museum, 46.6.2.31) the depression is absent, so that the line from the centre to the end 
of the nasals slopes gradually down without any swellings or depressions in its course. 
When very much irregularity occurs it is not so much brought about by the arching 
of the froutals as by the depression of the nasals and contraction of the superior 
maxillae in a line between the second and third premolars. 
Among the European skulls I have examined, the one which shows this depression 
least is a fox from Genoa, whereas it is much accentuated in the skull of the South- 
German fox with swollen frontals. The skull of the Scottish fox has the posterior 
half of the frontals slightly arched, but anterior to the postorbital process this skull 
and the one from Genoa are practically identical. The measurements, however, given 
