1882.] '*^'^ [Cope. 



dactyla and. ArHiodactyhr. Professor Gill* lias also used tliese characters to 

 a large extent, but without giving them theexclusive weight that appears 

 to me to belong to them. Other authors have either passed tliem by 

 unnoticed, or have correlated them or subordinated them to other charac- 

 acters in a way which has left the question of true affinity and therefore of 

 phylogenj'-, in a very unsatisfactory condition. Much light having been 

 thrown on these points by recent discoveries in paleontologj^, the results, 

 as they appear to me, are here given. 



J 



Fig. 1. 



Fig. 1.— Left anterior foot of Elephas africanus (from De Blainville). 



Carpus. — It is well known that in the Perissodactyla and Artiodactyla , 

 the bones of the two rows of the carpus alternate with each other ; that 

 the lunar for instance rests on the unciform, and to a varying degree on 

 the magnum, and that the scaphoides rests on the magnum and to some 

 degree on the trapezoides and trapezium. It is also known that in the 

 Proboscidea, another state of affairs exists ; i. e., that the bones of the two 

 rows do not alternate, but that the scaphoides, lunar and cuneiform, rest 

 directly on the trapezium and trapezoides, the magnum, and the unciform 

 respectively. The preceding characters are sometimes included in the 

 definitions of the respective orders. Further than this they have not been 

 used in a systematic sense. 



Professor Gill says of the carpus of the Hyracoidea, " carpal bones in two 

 interlocking rows ; cuneiform extending inwards (and articulating with 

 magnum) ; * * * unciform and lunar separated by the interposition of the 

 cuneiform and magnum." Professor Flowerf gives a figure which justi- 

 fies these statements, but neither the one nor the other agree with my 



* Arrangement of the families of Mammals prepared for the Smithsonian 

 Institution. Miscellaneous Collections 230. Nov., 1873, 

 t Osteology of the Mammalia, p. 266 ; fig. 92, 



