484 DR KNOX on the Structure of the Stomach 



may enable us to conjecture, with some shew of probability, that 

 the animal, whether fossil or otherwise, may have been specifi- 

 cally or generically allied in a certain degree to those with which 

 we are already acquainted ; and we may even admit as certain, 

 that a hoof, such as that of the horse or ox, never yet was com- 

 bined with other structures implying carnivorous habits. Neither 

 will it require any great stretch of the imagination to believe 

 that animals having the bulk of the mammoth could not possi- 

 bly subsist amidst the frozen regions of Siberia ; nor that plants, 

 having a seeming resemblance to our present inter-tropical vege- 

 table kingdom, could possibly grow and flourish in regions 

 doomed to a comparative absolute sterility, and to a dwarfish 

 stunted vegetable growth. To theories of this kind we may 

 fairly object, that heat is essential to life ; and to theorists of an- 

 other kind, who venture to declare a priori, and without having 

 any knowledge of the animal previously, its anatomy, and its na- 

 tural history, from the observance of a portion of the hide, a 

 fragment of the bones of the foot, a portion of the skull, a tooth, 

 that they cannot produce a single instance of their having ever 

 done so in a way so as not to admit of refutation, or at least of 

 doubt. The claws and nail-bones of the sloth indicate nothing 

 of its peaceful and frugivorous habits ; and to assimilate its habits 

 and anatomical structure with certain gigantic fossil remains is, 

 not to use a harsher style of criticism, eminently imaginative and 

 fantastic. The molar teeth of bears are not carnivorous molar 

 teeth ; and it is by the observation of the living species only that 

 we have become aware of the frugivorous habits of some, and of 

 the strictly carnivorous habits of the polar species. To speculate 

 from such facts as these as to the anatomy and natural history of 

 the extinct Ursus spelzeus, must, to every reflecting mind, ap- 

 pear exceedingly ridiculous. The strength of the zygomatic 

 arch of the dugong exceeds that of the lion, and yet how op- 

 posed are these animals to each other in their habits and gene- 



