383 French National Institute. 



race of oxen, was extirpated in his savage state; while the 

 ojher, which could not he siil)dued, still subsists in small 

 numbers in tlie forests of Lithuania alone?'* 



In loose soils we also meet with bones of horses and of 

 wild boars: the former almost always accompany the fossil 

 elephants, and are found along with the mastouonti, tigers, 

 hyenas, and other bones of fossil animals discovered in 

 alluvial soils : but it was impossible to ascertain if these 

 dorses' bones belonged to a species different from our present 

 race. The bones of wild boars have been for the most part 

 procured from peat- mosses, and do not in the least difier 

 from those of the wild boars of the present day. 



Other bones have been found, which M. Cuvicr has as- 

 certained to belong to an vmknown spee'.cs of la man tin of 

 manati. They have been discovered in strata of coarse ma 

 rine limestone on the banks 'of the Layon, in the environs 

 of Angers ; and they were mixed with other bones, some of 

 which seemed to have belonged to a large species oi phocas, 

 a,\u\ the others to a dolphin. 



The skeletons of three species of oviparous quadrupeds, 

 preserved in calcareous schists, have also been the object of 

 M. Cuvicr*s researches. 



The first was found in the schists of Qi^nigen, situated on 

 the right bank of the Rhine, at the mouih of the lake of 

 Consrance. It had been described and engraved as the 

 skeleton of an antediluvian man; but this error was refuted. 

 M. Cuvier proves by a series of osteological inquiries that 

 this reptile was analogous to a salamander, and belongs to 

 the genus proieiis. 



The second, also found in the same place, seems to have 

 belonged to the toad genus, and resembles the biifo calamita. 

 The third, and most singular, which was discovered in the 

 (juarrics of Altmuhl, near Aichtedt and Pa[)penheim, in 

 Franconia, and which had been described and drawn by 

 Collini in the Memoirs of the Manheim Academy, is re- 

 garded by M. Cuvier as having belonged to a species of otter. 

 The length of its neck and head, its long^ snout armed with 

 sharp teeth, and its long paws, indicate that this animal fed 

 on insects, and that it caught them when flying : the size of 

 its orbitary sockets also shows that it mu?t have had very 

 large eyes, and that it was a nocturnal animal, like the bat. 

 No beast of the present day has the least resemblance to it. 

 M. Cuvier, has also published a Sn[)plement to his Me- 

 moirs on the Fossils of Montmartrc; in which he gives the 

 figure and description of an ornhholitc, much more com- 

 plete than those which have been hillierto published. It is 



probaljJe 



