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On the Colossal Fossil Mammiferoiis Quadruped, nained 

 Dinothenum Giganteum. 



Fragments of the bones of this remarkable fossil and extinct 

 species have been found in several parts of France, in Ba- 

 varia, and in Austria ; the most abundant remains were found 

 at Applesheim, in the province of Hesse Darmstadt, where an 

 entire head, represented in Plate II., the most perfect specimen 

 hitherto found, was discovered in the autumn of last year (1836.) 

 The Applesheim bones were found in a sand pit along with 

 marine shells, and those from France in a fresh-water tertiary 

 limestone. It is described as having been one of the largest of 

 the land mammalia, to have attained the length of eighteen feet, 

 and according to Cuvier and Dr Buckland, as closely aUied to 

 the tapir. Dr Buckland in his Bridgewater treatise (vol. i. 

 pp. 137-8) thus states his opinion respecting its habits : — 



" I shall confine my present remarks to this peculiarity in the position of 

 the tusks, and endeavour to shew how far these organs illustrate the habits of 

 the extinct animals in which they are found. It is mechanically impossible 

 that a lower jaw, nearly four feet long, loaded with such heavy tusks at its 

 extremity, could have been otherwise than cumbrous and inconvenient to a 

 quadruped living on dry land. No such disadvantage would have attended 

 this structure in a large animal destined to live in water ; and the aquatic 

 habits of the family of Tapirs, to which the Dinotherium Avas most nearly 

 allied, render it probable, that, like them, it was an inhabitant of fresh- water 

 lakes and rivers. To an animal of such habits the weight of the tusks sus- 

 tained in water would have been no source of inconvenience ; and, if we sup- 

 pose them to have been employed as instruments for raking and grubbing up 

 by the roots large aquatic vegetables from the bottom, they would, under 

 such service, combine the mechanical powers of the pick-axe with those of the 

 horse-harrow of modern husbandry. The weight of the head, placed above 

 these downward tusks, would add to their efficiency for the service here sup- 

 posed, as the power of the harrow is increased by being loaded with weights. 



The tusks of the Dinotherium may also have been applied with mechanical 

 advantage to hook on the head of the animal to the bank, with the nostrils 

 sustained above the water, so as to breathe securely during sleep, whilst the 

 body remained floating at perfect ease beneath the surface ; the animal might 

 thua repose, moored to the margin of a lake or river, without the slightest 

 muscular exertion, the weight of the head and body tending to fix and keep 

 the tusks fast anchored in the substance of the bank ; as the weight of the body 

 of a sleeping bird keeps the claws clasped firmly around its jierch. These 

 tusks might have been further used, like those in the upper jaw of the Wal- 



