30 AMPHITHERIID &. 
minative and analogical powers of so many philosophic 
naturalists, and have excited such warm discussion, are 
the well-known small under-jaws from the oolitic calca- 
reous slate at Stonesfield, near Oxford, first indicated as 
evidence of the Mammalian class by Dr. Buckland, in 
his celebrated memoir on the Megalosaurus, published in 
1823, in the ‘“ Transactions of the Geological Society of 
London,”* and there referred, on the authority of Cuvier, 
to the genus Didelphys. 
In regard to the value of that authority in this particular 
instance, M. Prevost has informed us that Baron Cuvier ex- 
amined the specimen, (7g. 16,) at that time unique, during a 
visit which he paid to the University of Oxford, in 1818, 
and that a cursory inspection led that learned anatomist 
to say, that it had some resemblance or affinity to the 
jaw of a Didelphys.+ Cuvier, himself, has added to the 
last volume of the second edition of the Ossemens fossiles, 
4to., 1825, the following note: ‘‘ M. Prevost, who is at 
present travelling in England, has just sent me a drawing of 
one of these jaws ; it confirms me in the idea which my first 
inspection gave me of it. It is that of a small Carnivore, 
(Carnassier,) the jaws of which bear much resemblance 
to those of the Opossums; but it has ten teeth in a row, 
a number which no known Carnivore displays. At all 
events, if this animal be really from the schist of Stones- 
field, it is a most remarkable exception to an other- 
wise very general rule, that the strata of that high anti- 
quity do not contain the remains of Mammals.” 
The statement did, in fact, soon excite close and sceptical 
* Vol. i. Second Series, p. 399. 
+ Cette piéce unique était conservée dans la collection de l’université d’Ox- 
ford, lorsque M. Cuvier la vit en 1818. Une inspection rapide fit dire a ce sa- 
vant anatomiste qu’elle avait des rapports avec la machoire de quelque Didelphe.” 
Prevost in “ Annales des Sciences,” iv. 1825, p. 396. 
