1G4 Royal Society : — 



two perforations for the passage of vessels through the orbit, 

 just behind the lachrymal pit. The brain-case is oblong, 

 narrowed above, at the upper edge of the orbits. At the 

 lower edge of the orbits it is much expanded out, being the 

 widest part of the skull. The face, from the upper edge of 

 the orbits is gradually, and from the lower edge rapidly, 

 attenuated as far as the front end of the grinders. The nose, 

 from the front end of the grinders, slender, compressed, with 

 the front half of its length rather narrowed on the sides. 

 The nasal bones moderate, the middle of the hinder end being 

 broadly produced between the fore part of the frontals, which I 

 have not observed in any other deer. The intermaxillary 

 bones very slender in front, the hinder half becoming much 

 broader above, and attached to the sides of the front of the 

 nasals — more so than in any South-American deer that I have 

 yet observed. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 

 ROYAL SOCIETY. 



Eeb. 6, 1873.— Sir George Biddell Airy, K.C.B., President, in the 



Chair. 



" On the Osteology of the Hyopotamidce." 

 By Dr. W. Kowalevsky. 



The paper laid before the Society is intended to fill a certain 

 deficiency in our knowledge of the extinct creation by giving a 

 complete osteology of a family of Paridigitate Ungulata, which, by 

 the completeness of its skeleton, unreduced number of digits, and 

 rich development in generic and specific forms, I deem to be of 

 great importance in our speculations on the pedigree of living Un- 

 gulata Paridigitata. 



On theoretical grounds, as well as from the consideration of rudi- 

 mental parts in living Paridigitata, anatomists have always sup- 

 posed that fossil representatives of this family, which could be 

 regarded as the progenitors of the recent Paridigitata, would cer- 

 tainly exhibit a much less reduced skeleton and a more complete 

 number of digits than the recent genera do. Tet, strange to say, 

 such complete forms were not forthcoming ; and if assumed on 

 the evidence of their teeth, very little was known about the structure 

 of their bony frame. My statement will sound like an exagger- 

 ation ; but still it is true, that since the time of Cuvier, who 

 shortly noticed the tetradactyle Dichobune, and Blainville, who gave 

 a very imperfect description of CainotJiermm, we have absolutely 



