368 Phitoniatic Socicfy. 



name of cajlor. The right antenna of the male has a hinge 

 by means of which he lays hold of the threads that terminate 

 the tail of the female to force her to copulate. When the 

 two fexes copulate, they are in an oppofite direction. 



C. Cuvier read a note oa the folfil tapirs of France. The 

 author announced, that there are dag up in France the bones 

 of two kinds of tapirs ; one of the fize of the dommon tapir, 

 which is no longer found alive in America, and the other of a 

 fize equal to that of the hippopotamus, and of which living 

 individuals no where exift. Both thefe kinds, like the common 

 tapir, have teeth (grinders) the fummit of which is marked 

 with two or three tranfverfal eminences or ridges that become 

 blunted with age. Among the animals known at prefent, there 

 is none but the lamanthi which participates in this charafter 

 with the tapir. The want of incifive and canine teeth, how- 

 ever, and the form of the jaw-bon*s of the lamantin, by no 

 means permit them to be confounded with thofe of the tapir. 

 The author has feen two confiderable portions of the lower 

 jaw of the former, or fmall fpecies, in the cabinet of C. Dree. 

 They were found on the laft declivities of the Black Mountain, 

 near the village of IfTel, in the department of Herault, in a 

 bed of coarfe gravel. They have no fenfible difierence from 

 the analogous parts of the common tapir. In regard to the 

 large fpecies, the author knows of fouf fpecimens : i . An 

 extreme grinder found in a ravine near Vienne, in Dauphiny, 

 and defcribed and illuftrated by a figure in the Journal de 

 Phyjique for February 1773 : 2. A confiderable portion of a 

 grinder found by C. Gilet-Laumont at Saint-Lary, in Com- 

 minge : 3. The germ of a grinder without roots, preferved in 

 the National Mufeum of Natural Iliftory : and 4. The two 

 halves of a lower jaw, conlaining each five grinders, but 

 broken at both ends, and confequently without the incifores 

 or canine teeth, and without any determinate form. It may 

 be eafily feen that four of thefe grinders have tranfverfal emi- 

 nences, as thofe of the tapir; and that the one before is 

 alone flat at the top, and without any protuberance. It ia 

 probable that the animal was not full grown, fince it wanted 

 the extreme grinder with three protuberances, and that the 

 one next to it had not been ufed. From the fize of thefe 



teeth 



