On the foregoing grounds it may be inferred that the Hyoena which has left its remains in the Chinese cave was fully as powerful an animal as the Hyoena speloea of Europe. It was of a distinct species, and, like the feebler one from the Red Crag, manifested, by the development of the tubercle from the hind part of the basal ridge of the third upper premolar, a tendency to a combination of the dental characters on which mainly modern taxonomists have rested in the generic distinction of the two best-marked forms of existing Hyaena (Crocotta maculata, Kaup, and Hyoena striata), Ray Lankester has well remarked on this instance of " divergence of types as we ascend the geological ladder," which his H. antiqua afforded. The only question is, whether H. sinensis may not have climbed to as high a rung, before it finally fell, as did the H. speloea. The specimens above described have undergone less change from their recent state than have many of the teeth of H. speloea from British caves.
The fossil specimens representing the Hyoena sivalensis, B. and D., and F. and C., are in the museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, in that of Dr. Jameson at Suharunpoor, and in the British Museum. Of the teeth of the lower jaw the notice is restricted to the fact of their " being larger than in the existing Hyoena"* ; but whether the Indian or the S. African species, is not stated. From the above admeasurements, however, it is obvious that the existing species of India was meant, viz. the Hyoena vulgaris seu striata.
Rhinoceros sinensis, Ow.
The genus Rhinoceros is represented by portions of four upper molars, and of as many lower molars, in two of which the crown is nearly entire.
The most perfect of the upper molars is the last of the left side, m 3 (Pl. XXIX. figs. 1 & 2) including the elongated lobes c, d, continued inward from the outer tract of dentine (here broken away), together with the dividing valley, e. The fore and rear sides of the tooth converge outwardly, and the hinder lobe has no indent or valley penetrating it from that side; both which characters determine the place of the tooth in question. The postinternal lobe or ridge (d) sends a short broad simple promontory†, p, into the valley e. There is no tubercle or ridge at the entry to that valley, which runs sinuously outward and forward of nearly uniform depth to the end. The fore part of the cingulum (r) descends from the origin of the antinternal lobe (c) to the inner side of its base, where it subsides ; the hind part of the cingulum is represented by a short thick lobular ridge (r 1 ) at the inner and back part of the postinternal lobe, d. The enamel, two millimetres in thickness at the fore part of the grinding-surface, thins off to less than half a millimetre over the promontory and end of the valley. In size the molar, as far as it is preserved, agrees with the corresponding tooth in Rhinoceros sumatranus ; the fore-and-aft diameter of its inner side is one inch nine lines.
- Falconer, ' Palaeontological Memoirs,' vol. i. p. 343.
† Hist. of Brit. Foss. Mamm. p. 374.
