PALEONTOLOGY SINCE CUVIER. 53 



of our domestic animals, more especially of the 

 oxen, the accurateness of his account of the actual 

 facts, the subtlety and carefulness of his combina- 

 tions everything, in fact, makes Biitimeyer's 

 work appear as if it had been ordered for a given 

 purpose. Soon after this, in 1863, he published 

 a work on fossil horses. 1 This work, which was 

 undertaken by way of explaining the relation of 

 the genus Horse to its primeval ancestors, is, in 

 reality, a treatise on comparative odontography, or 

 the study of the teeth of the whole class of hoofed- 

 animals. The precision with which he points out 

 the significance of the characters of the teeth, the 

 relation of the milk teeth to the permanent teeth, 

 the transitions in the geological successions of the 

 genera and species, and traces them back to uni- 

 versal principles and laws, can be compared only 

 to the sagacity of a Cuvier. I must confess 

 that I have never felt my interest so thoroughly 

 aroused in a subject, wholly distinct from my 

 own special study, as it has been by these two 

 works of the Basle zoologist. 



Unfortunately, our greatest authority on do- 

 mesticated animals, Herman von Nathusius, who 

 died a few years since, and was always vehemently 

 1 Beitrcige zur Kenntniss derfossilen Pferde 



