LIFE OF FLOWER 115 



received the support of the well-known American 

 paleontologist, Dr. J. L. Wortman, 1 who is specially 

 qualified to form a trustworthy opinion on a point of 

 this nature. 



Finally, whatever be the eventual verdict as to the 

 serial homology of the marsupial dentition as a whole, 

 and also as to that of the replacing premolar, Flower 

 must always be credited with the discovery that 

 marsupials replace only a single pair of teeth in each 

 jaw by vertical successors. 



The other papers on dentition referred to above as 

 having been "written by Flower about the same time 

 are, although interesting in their way, of far less im- 

 portance than the one published in the Philosophical 

 Transactions. Indeed the one read before the British 

 Association in 1 868 and published in the Journal of 

 Anatomy and Physiology for the same year, is little more 

 than a recapitulation of the results arrived at in the former. 



The paper on the development and succession of the 

 teeth in the armadillos, published in the Zoological 

 Society's Proceedings in 1 868, is, on the other hand, of 

 considerable interest on account of its confirming the 

 fact first mentioned by the French zoologist, Professor 

 Paul Gervais, but generally overlooked by subsequent 

 writers up to that time, that the common nine-banded 

 armadillo (^Tatusia peba) differs from its relatives in 

 replacing some of its teeth by vertical successors. This 

 at the time was an unexpected feature in any member 

 of the so-called Edentate mammals ; and tended further 

 to break down the supposed hard and fast distinction 

 between monophyodonts and diphyodonts. 



1 American Journal of Science , vol. xi. p, 336 (1901). 



