152 
as the state of the specimens will not permit any definite character to 
be drawn from it, I will not venture an opinion as to which family of 
Ruminants should claim this remarkable form. 
Among the remaining families, I have noticed that in the Moschide 
and Cervide the styloid process becomes free almost immediately at 
the base of the auditory process, while in the Bovide or Cavicorn 
Ruminants, it is enclosed more or less completely for some distance 
in the downward and forward direction. The Cervide may also 
be distinguished from the latter by the form of the infraorbital 
depression, which has its most sudden sinkage on the upper side, or 
that which is next the infraorbital fissure. The Giraffe, although it 
has neither the depression nor the fissure, resembles the Cervide in 
the character of the auditory bulla, and in having the molar teeth ex- 
panded at the base of the crown, and compressed towards the summits 
of the lobes. The Moschide must, of course, be distinguished from 
the Cervide by their trilocular stomach, and by the presence of the 
gall-bladder*, and it is probable that further differences in their in- 
ternal anatomy may yet be found; I must however revert to the 
subject of dentition to point out some characters in which they differ 
from all other Ruminants, and agree with the non-ruminant Artiodac- 
tyla. In these, as well as in some of the Musk-deer, the premolars, and 
those that represent them among the milk series, assume a trenchant 
form, and have a more or less developed additional cusp both before and 
behind ; this little cusp also shows itseli upon the anterior extremity 
of the penultimate upper milk tooth, which, as well as the last one, 
has the bipartite form of a true molar, and therefore by this combi- 
nation of characters may be recognised if found alone. In most Ru- 
minants the cusp is very small, and when worn down shows itself 
merely as a thickening of the anterior border of the crown. This 
tooth, however, also presents us occasionally with a zoological cha- 
racter in the development or non-development of the internal tubercle 
of the anterior pair; it is absent in the Hog; in the Peccary (who 
seems loath to relinquish any of the full number of cusps that nature 
can allow him) it is present; the Moschide are the only true Rumi- 
nants in which I have found it wanting ; this seems to characterize 
the family, and together with the trenchant character of the premolars 
in the Meminna and Hyeomoschus, seems to associate with them the 
genera Dichobune, Dichodon, and Cainotherium+. 
* The singular variety in this respect noticed by Prof. Owen in the Giraffe, must 
detract somewhat from the value of the character ; but as the absence of the gall- 
bladder seems to be the rule in this animal, it strengthens, so far as it can avail, 
the idea of Cervine affinity. 
+ In the true Moschus the premolars have much the same form as in the gene- 
rality of Ruminants; the incisors are uniform and nearly equal in size, and the au- 
ditory bulla is small: in the Meminna, and in those to which the generic name 
Tragulus has been applied (which I can see no reason for separating from it), the 
last upper premolar alone is bicuspid, the other two and all the lower ones being 
trenchant ; the two median incisors are expanded, the others narrowed and curved 
outwards to make room for them, and the auditory bulla swollen: Hyeomoschus 
only differs from these in the penultimate upper premolar, which though trenchant 
is short, and when worn down has the appearance of being simply conical. 
