AMPHITHERIUM. 41 
of the posterior teeth still permits the recognition of a 
different conformation of the crown in them, as com- 
pared with the four remaining anterior molares. The 
difference in the configuration of the perfect crowns of 
the molar teeth, in the maxillary ramus of the Amphi- 
therium at York, is such as to render both easy and certain 
the distinction of the molares spurii from the molares veri, 
which is commonly observed in Mammalian quadrupeds, 
but never in fishes and reptiles. The term ‘ multicuspid ’ 
cannot properly be applied to the anterior or false molars 
of the Amphitherium, which have but one principal cusp, 
and a minute tubercle, or talon, at one or both sides of 
its base. 
Of the value of the argument drawn from the colour 
of the fossils, any one conversant with the varieties of 
shade, from brown to deep black, which Mammalian fossil 
teeth present, may judge; and, on this point, Mr. Ogilby 
has remarked, “the composition of the teeth cannot be 
advanced successfully against the mammiferous nature of 
the fossils, because animal matter preponderates over mine- 
ral in the teeth of the great majority of the Insectivorous 
Cheiroptera, as well as in those of the Myrmecobius and 
other small Marsupials.” 
If it were true that the crown of the teeth of the Amphi- 
therium was supported by ‘a long and much contracted 
cervix,’ before the fangs were formed, these might be said 
to be bifid; but the original specimen of Amphitherium 
in the Oxford Museum demonstrates the independent 
origin of two fangs from the base of the crown, and the 
same fact is as plainly shewn in the Phascolotherium Buck- 
landi in the British Museum, where the origins of the 
double fangs are plainly visible above the sockets. 
The cervix of the teeth is extremely short; in fact the 
