DINOTHERIUM. Gil 



two permanent premolars succeed two or three deciduous ones, 

 nor has any specimen with the deciduous molars in situ, ana- 

 logous to the fragment of the upper jaw above cited, been yet found. 

 The last deciduous inferior molar has been found separate ; it sup- 

 ports, like that above, three transverse eminences, but the first is 

 narrower and the third is broader than in its analogue of the upper 

 jaw. The first lower premolar is implanted like that above by two 

 fangs ; but it has a smaller and simpler crown, which is narrower 

 in proportion to its antero-posterior extent, and is almost entirely 

 occupied by the antero-posterior ridge : only the posterior of the 

 two inner tubercles being developed : thus the crown presents more 

 of a trenchant than a grinding character. The second premolar 

 supports two transverse ridges. The third of the permanent 

 series, which is the first true molar, has three transverse ridges 

 like the one above, but is relatively narrower. The second and 

 third true molars, the penultimate and last of the series, have 

 each large square crowns, with two transverse ridges and an 

 anterior and posterior talon, the latter being more developed than 

 in the corresponding molars of the upper jaw (PI. 96, fig. 7). 



As the three-ridged or first true molar tooth is the first of 

 the permanent series which comes into place, its crown, conform- 

 ably with the general law, exhibits most abrasion ; this character 

 is well shown in Cuvier's Plate 5, ' Animaux voisins de Tapirs, 

 Ossemens Fossiles,' tom. ii., in the portion of jaw discovered 

 in 17S3 at Comminge, near the River Louze. The beautifully 

 entire crown of Cuvier's gigantic Tapir, figured at PI. 4, fig. 3, 

 of the same volume is the penultimate molar of the lower jaw of 

 the Dinotherium giganteum. Dr. Kaup was led, by the inspection 

 of a drawing of a fossil tooth made in 1785, of which he has 

 given a lithograph in his excellent Work ' Ossemens Fossiles de 

 Darmstadt', PI. 5, fig. 2, to conceive that the Dinotherium had three 

 premolars, and that the tooth above cited was the first : there is 

 no trace, how^ever, of the alveolus of such a molar in the mag- 

 nificent cranium discovered at Epplesheim in 1836, which from 

 the unworn state of the last two molars cannot have belonged 

 to an old animal. The same cranium also negatives the suppo- 



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