THE CANID^E, OR DOGS. 279 



and word-forms, &c., and that the literary historian 

 may conclude that a certain work was written by 

 a certain author, from the style of the composition 

 and certain modes of expression, &c. ; and further, 

 when it is admitted that a lawyer, by the com- 

 bination of passages, all of which are obscure, can 

 throw light upon a case of Roman law, then I 

 maintain our procedure also a zoologico-palse- 

 ontological method of investigation and drawing 

 conclusions must be granted as a matter of 

 course. 



The descent of Weasels and Cats from those 

 changing forms of Cynodictis, therefore, presents a 

 great degree of probability but no actual certainty ; 

 for different animals that appear geologically almost 

 as contemporaries, may occur parallel with one 

 another with precisely similar dental formulas and 

 reductions in the jaw. However, we come to the 

 certain conviction that the transformations actually 

 took place, and that our present animal could and 

 must have originated in that natural manner. 

 And as it is mainly our wish merely to pave the 

 way for this opinion, it will be almost superfluous 

 to enter any more fully into the primary and tran- 

 sition forms between the present and the primeval 

 Carnivora. 



