ICTONTS EETTHRE^. 
241 
Measurements of skulls. 
Greatest length (pi’emaxillse to condylar proc. of occipital) . 
„ breadth (zygomatic) . .. 
„ „ (mastoids). 
Interorbital breadth. 
Temporal constriction. 
Basal length. 
Palatal length. 
Breadth outside 1 . 
pms. 3.. . . 
Alveolar length of piQ- ^ .. 
6 • 
$. Type. 
mm. 
mm. 
66 
555 
43-5 
34-5 
35-5 
28 
18 
14-5 
13-5 
14’5 
60 
52 
31 
25 
15 
12 
23-5 
20-5 
7-5 
6-5 
The large male skull is not so large as skulls of females of the Cape species, 
I. capensis, nor as that of the type of I. senegcdensis, which is also a female, but the 
zygomata are very broad in proportion. 
[The neighbourhood of Suakin is the only locality within our boundary in which 
this species has been found. Mr. Witherby obtained skulls of apparently the same 
species from the nest of a kite to the south of Khartum on the White Mle.— 
W. E. BE W.] 
Riippell (Neue Wirbelth., Saug. 1836, p. 35) says of this species: “Common in 
Nubia, Sennaar, and Kordofan. Arab name ‘Abu afene.’ Lives in burrows: a terror 
to poultry. Mammae 6 on the belly.” 
Hadendowah name ‘ Gailib ’ or ‘ Galeleeb.’ 
In the skull of the Suakin Ictonyx and its allies there is a postorbital swelling and 
then a contraction of the brain-case, the brain-case being also swollen on the parietal 
region, so that from the postorbital contraction the skull expands and then contracts 
and expands again, and then contracts from the swelling of the parietal backwards to 
the occipito-parietal ridge. This is the general form of the brain-case of I. capensis 
and I. senegalensis, and beyond the lesser size there is not a single character by which 
the skull of I. erythrece can be distinguished from the skulls of those animals. 
Ictonyx senegalerisis is closely allied to I. capensis; these forms are not distinguishable 
by size, but only by the greater amount of black covering the upper surface of the head, 
the smaller size of the preaural white band, and particularly by the more pronounced 
character of the black dorsal bands in the South-African as compared with the Western 
form. 
2i 
