DIDELPHIS 34<1 



cyon have been found principally in the niiocene deposits at 

 Sansans, south of France. Those of a smaller species from 

 the miocene at Eppelsheim, have been referred to the wolverine 

 genus, as Gulo diaphorus, Kaup. 



The proofs of the abundant mammalian inhabitants of the 

 eocene continent were first obtained by Cuvier from the fos- 

 silized remains in the deposits that fill the enormous Parisian 

 excavation of the chalk. But the forms which that great anato- 

 mist restored were all new and strange, specifically, and for the 

 most part generically, distinct from all known existing quad- 

 rupeds. By these restorations the naturalist was first made 

 acquainted with the aquatic cloven-hoofed Anoplothere, and 

 with its light and graceful congeners, the Dichobunes and 

 Xiphodon, with the great Palaaotheres, which may be likened 

 to hornless rhinoceroses, with the more tapiroid Lophiodon, 

 with the large peccari-like Chceropotamus, and with about a 

 score of other genera and species of placental Mammalia. 



Almost the sole exception to the generic distinction of 

 these eocene forms from modern ones was yielded by the 

 opossum of Montmartre (Didelphis Gypsorum, fig. 106) ; and 

 what made this discovery the more remarkable was the fact 

 that all the known existing species of that marsupial genus 

 are now confined to America, and the greater part to the 

 southern division of that continent. An opossum appears 

 to have been associated with the Hyracotheriuin in the 

 eocene sand of Suffolk ; where likewise, a porcine beast 

 with tusks like ordinary canines, and some remains of 

 a monkey (Eopithccus), have been found. With respect to 

 the Didelphis Gypsorum, its generic relations were deduced 

 from characters of the lower jaw and teeth ; but these 

 were associated with other parts of the skeleton in the same 

 block of stone. When Cuvier expressed his convictions 

 from the teeth and other parts first exposed and examined, his 

 scientific associates were incredulous. Ho invited them, there- 



