336 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



show a size like our variety, with antlers equally large, and 

 with all the distinguishing peculiarities, even to the occasion- 

 al presence of a snag on the brow antler, which occurs in 

 about five per cent, of our elk ; but never, so far as Judge 

 Caton could learn, in the European animal of modern times. 

 The two also inbreed perfectly well in European forests, with 

 fertile progeny. 



This entire subject will probably be thoroughly elucidated 

 by Judge Caton in an exhaustive work on the American 

 Cervidoe, upon which he has been engaged for some years 

 past. 



THE CHARACTERS AND RELATIONS OF THE HTOPOTAMID^E. 



The first part of a very important memoir " on the Osteology 

 of the Hyopotamidoe," by Dr. W. Kowalevsky, of Russia, has 

 been lately published in the " Philosophical Transactions of 

 the Royal Society of London" (vol. clxiii., p. 19-94, 1874), and 

 is illustrated by six plates (pi. 35-40). A flood of light is 

 thrown upon the group in question, which had, it seems, been 

 previously much misunderstood. After some well-deserved 

 criticisms on the looseness and irrelevancy of descriptions of 

 some of his predecessors, the author proceeds with the de- 

 scription of the long bones (scapula, humerus, ulna and radi- 

 us, femur, tibia and fibula, and foot bones), to which this first 

 part is restricted. His researches confirm the naturalness 

 of the division of the typical ungulate quadrupeds into two 

 sub-orders, distinguished by the structure of the foot, i.e., (1) 

 Paridigitata, or Artiodactyla, and (2) Imparidigitata,or Peris- 

 sodactyla; and so decisive is the evidence afforded by the 

 relations of the bones of the feet that it is remarked that "we 

 may very often know most of the long bones of the skeleton 

 the scapula, the humerus, the antibrachium, the tibia, and 

 fibula of a fossil ungulate without being able to determine 

 quite certainly the natural series to which it belonged ; nay, 

 even more, we may discover the skull and the complete denti- 

 tion without being made much wiser by it. The history of 

 paleontology swarms with such examples; but the discovery 

 of a single carpal or tarsal bone very often clears the whole 

 question by showing in the most unmistakable manner the 

 true affinities of a fossil form." Such considerations induced 

 Dr. Kowalevsky to enter into a detailed examination of the 



