342 



PALAEONTOLOGY 



fore, to witness a crucial test. The outline of the back part 



of the pelvis was exposed, 

 the fore part buried in the 

 matrix. By his delicate use 

 of the graving-tool, Cuvier 

 brought to light the fore- 

 part of the pelvis with the 

 two marsupial bones (fig. 

 106, a, a) in their natural 

 position. He thus demon- 

 strated that there had been 

 buried in the soft fresh- 

 water deposits, hardened in 

 after ages into the building- 

 stone of Paris, an animal 



Pelvis and marsupial bones of DiddpUs wllOSe geUUS at the present 

 Gypsorum (Eocene, Paris). cky ig peculiar to America, 



It is not uninteresting to remark that the Peccari, the nearest 

 existing ally to the old Chceropotamus, is, like the opossum, 

 now peculiar to America ; and that two species of tapir, the 

 nearest living allies to the Lophiodon and Pala^othere, exist in 

 South America. 



The marine deposits of the miocene epoch show the remains 



of extinct genera of dolphins 

 (Zipliius and Diojylodon) and of 

 whales (Balamodon). Petri tied 

 cetaceous teeth and ear-bones, 

 called " cetotolites » (fig. 107) 



Cetotolite or fossil' ear-bone of Baheno- ]iave keen washed out of pre- 



don c/ibbosus (Red Crag, Suffolk), vious strata into the red crag 

 of Suffolk. These fossils belong to species distinct from any 

 known existing Cetacea, and which, probably, like some con- 

 temporary quadrupeds, retained fully-developed characters 

 which are embryonic and transitory in existing cognate 



