James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition, 1819-1820, part 2James, Edwin
History
James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition, 1819-1820, part 2
James, Edwin
Indians of North America; Rocky Mountains; United States -- Discovery and exploration; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
Besides this disparity of dentition in the red and gray foxes, the
general form of the cranium, and its particular detailed characters,
as a less elevated occipital, and temporal crest, more profoundly
sinuous junction of the malar with the maxillary bone, the absence
of elevated lines bounding the space between the insertions of the
lateral muscles, passing in a slightly reclivate direction between the
orbital processes, and the anterior tip of the occipital crest, and
in particular the want of an angular process of the lower jaw beneath
the spinous process in the cranium of the red fox, are sufficiently
obvious characters to indicate even by this portion of the osseous
structure alone, its specific distinctness from the gray fox. In these
differences the osteology of the burrowing fox equally participates,
and although besides these characters in common with the red fox, we
may observe a correspondence in many other respects, yet there are
also many distinctions which the cranium of this small species will
present, when more critically compared with that well known animal,
which unequivocally forbid us from admitting their identity. The
common elevated space on the parietal bones between the insertions
of the lateral muscles is one-fourth wider, and extends further
backward, so as to embrace a notable portion of the anterior angle of
the sagitto-occipital crest; the recipient cavity in the inferior jaw
for the attachment of the masseter muscle is more profound, and the
coronoid process, less elevated than the top of the zygomatic arch, is
more obtusely rounded at tip than that of the red fox.
The dimensions of the cranium, as taken by the calipers:
The entire length from the insertion of the superior incisores to
the tip of the occipital crest, is rather more than four inches
and three-tenths. The least distance between the orbital cavities,
nine-tenths. Between the tips of the orbital processes less than one
inch and one-tenth. Between the insertions of the lateral muscles, at
the junction of the frontal and parietal bones, half an inch. Greatest
breadth of this space on the parietal bones thirteen-twentieths of an
inch.
The hair is fine, dense, and soft. The head above is fulvous,
drawing on ferruginous, intermixed with gray, the fur being of the
first-mentioned colour, and the hair whitish at base; then black; then
gray; then brown. The ridge of the nose is somewhat paler, and a more
brownish dilated line passes from the eye to near the nostrils, (as in
the C. corsac). The margin of the upper lip is white; the orbits are
gray; the ears behind are paler than the top of the head, intermixed
with black hairs and the margin, excepting at tip, white; the inner
side is broadly margined with white hairs; the space behind the ear
is destitute of the intermixture of hairs; the neck above has longer
hairs, of which the black and gray portions are more conspicuous;
beneath the head pure white.
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