Geological Society. 49 



cari. In some points, however, in -whieh these remains deviate from 

 the Peccari, they were shown by Mr. Owen to indicate an approach 

 to the carnivorous type, and this aihnity he showed is further exhi- 

 bited in the specimen found by Mr. Fox, in the prolongation back- 

 ward of the angle of the jaw, a character which in the class Mam- 

 malia has hitherto been found almost exclusively in the carnivorous 

 order, and certainly in no Pachydermatous or other ungulate species 

 of Mammal. In the jaw from the Isle of Wight the angle is more 

 compressed and deeper than in the bear, dog, or cat tribe ; and it is 

 not bent inwards in the way which peculiarly distinguishes the mar- 

 supial jaws, and which so neatly characterizes the Stonesfield raam- 

 miferous remains. The condyloid process in the Cheeropotamus is 

 raised higher above the angle of the jaw than in the true Carnivora; 

 and it is less convex than in the hog or peccari ; and the coronoid 

 process is more developed than in the peccari. In the wavy out- 

 line of the inferior border of the lower jaw, and in the teeth, which 

 are well developed in the jaw described by Mr. Owen, a close re- 

 semblance is displayed in the Chjeropotamus to the peccari. The 

 jaw contains thi-ec true tuberculated molars and three conical false 

 molars with double fangs, which molars are relatively larger than 

 in existing Suida;, and an anterior tooth, which Cuvier in the Paris 

 basin specimens considered to be a canine, but which is situated 

 closer to the symphysis of the jaw than in any of the Suidse. 



Mr. Owen then observed, that the occasional canine propensities 

 of the common hog are well known ; and that they correspond with 

 the organization of the genus which offers the nearest resemblance 

 among the existing Pachydermata to the carnivorous type of struc- 

 ture. In the extinct Chseropotamus we have evidently another of 

 those beautiful examples in Palaeontology of links tending to com- 

 plete a chain of affinities which the revolutions of the earth's sur.. 

 face has interrupted, and for a time concealed from our view. It is 

 interesting also to perceive that the living sub-genus of the hog-tribe 

 Avhich most resembles the Chaeropotamus should be confined to the 

 South American continent, where the Tapir, the nearest living ana- 

 logue of the ^Inoplotherian and Palaeotherian associates of the Chse- 

 ropotamus, now exists. 



The author then offered some remarks on a jaw discovered by 

 Mr. Pratt in the Binstead quarries in 1830, and considered by him 

 to be allied to the genus Moschus*. On comparing the jaw with 

 the corresponding part of the Moschus moschiferus, which it resem- 

 bles in size, Mr. Owen has found that in the fossil the grinders are 

 relatively liroader, that the last molar has the third or posterior tu- 

 bercle divided l)y a longitudinal fissure, that the grinding surface is 

 less oblique, and that the coronoid process differs from that of the 

 Moschus and other ruminants, but strongly bespeaks an affinity with 

 tlie Pachydermata. 



Among tlie genera of the Paris basin established by Cuvier, the 

 Dicliobune exhiljits cliaracters which connect the Pachydermata with 



• Geological 'IVansactions, Sec. Scr. vol. iii. \i. 1j1. 



Phil. May. S. 3. Vol. 14. No. 85. Jan. 1839. E 



