54 REPORT — 1842. 



fitted than these for the contemplation of the philosopher ; and by the con- 

 summate sagacity with which Liebig has applied to their elucidation the 

 powers of his mind, we are compelled to admit that there is no living philo- 

 sopher to whom the Chemical Section could have more appropriately entrusted 

 their investigation. 



Report on the British Fossil Mammalia. By Richard Owen, Esq., 



F.R.S. 



Part I. Unguiculata and Cetacea. 



By many recent valuable works there may be evidently discerned in the 

 labours of the Naturalists of the present day a tendency to the acquisition 

 of complete and precise knowledge of the animals and plants of particular 

 countries and localities. The birds of Europe, the freshwater fishes of the 

 same continent, the vertebrated animals of Italy, those of the northern re- 

 gions of America, the fishes of Scandinavia, have had respectively their 

 historians in a Gould, an Agassiz, a Bonaparte, a Richardson, and a Nillson ; 

 and, not to mention many other fauna? and florae of foreign countries, the 

 series of excellent zoological works, published by Mr. Van Voorst, have in- 

 cluded able surveys by our most eminent Naturalists of the existing species 

 of different classes of animals of Great Britain. 



The British Association has favorably promoted the acquisition of analo- 

 gous knowledge of the extinct animals of these islands, and the result of such 

 investigations in regard to one class, encourages their application to other 

 departments of primaeval zoology. 



How marvellous is the contrast, for example, which the catalogue of the 

 British Fossil Reptiles presents in regard to the number, diversity, bulk, and 

 outward forms of its subjects, with that of the existing species ! In this com- 

 parison Prof. Bell's instructive volume on British Reptiles seems to form but a 

 small appendix to that which treats of the extinct forms ; to so small a group 

 of diminutive species have the cold-blooded air-breathing animals dwindled 

 down in our portion of the earth's surface. 



The .contrast promises to be, though not so striking, still very great, be- 

 tween the catalogues of the extinct and existing British Mammalia ; and in 

 undertaking, at the request of the Association, the present survey of the British 

 Fossil Quadrupeds and Whales, the number and variety of these have made it 

 requisite to divide the subject, and prolong the researches which it demands 

 into another year. 



It is proposed in this Report to record the fossil remains of extinct British 

 Mammalia; first, according to their zoological relations, following them in 

 the descending order ; and, secondly, to enumerate them according to the 

 strata, and in the same order. 



The present division of the Report includes the Quadrumana, Clieiroptera, 

 Insectivora, Carnivora, Bodentia, Marsupialia, and Cetacea. 



This simple enumeration makes known the remarkable fact, that two 

 orders of Mammalia, one of which has totally disappeared from the conti- 

 nents of the old world of the geographer, and the other is hardly recognized 

 as European, have once possessed representatives in the land which now 

 forms the island of Great Britain. So that whilst the Zoologist, enumerating 

 the existing mammals of this island, finds the nearest approach to man in 

 the diminutive bats, the palaeontologist, by the extinct forms, can ascend 

 another step, and commence his catalogue with a species of the quadruma- 

 nous order. 



