The hoofed animals, it is plain, must be her- 

 bivorous, because they are possessed of no means 

 of seizing their prey ; it is also evident that their 

 fore-legs, being only necessary to support their 

 bodies and to assist their progressive move- 

 ment, they have no occasion for any rotary 

 motion in that joint that corresponds to the 

 human wrist ; and their food being herbaceous, 

 their teeth must have flat surfaces ; but at the 

 same time, in order to bruise seeds and tough 

 plants, the teeth are composed of alternate 

 layers of hard enamel and soft bone ; and a 

 horizontal or grinding motion is given to the 

 lower jaw, which for that purpose has a peculiar 

 conformation of its joint. Again, we know that 

 ruminating animals alone are provided with 

 cloven hoofs, so that, from a simple foot-mark 

 we can be perfectly certain that the animal pos- 

 sessed such and such teeth, jaws, legs, shoulders 

 and horns ; and that it fed on herbage. 



The same laws and the same modes of reason- 

 ing, of course, equally apply to petrified bones ; 

 and in this manner seventy- eight different fossil 

 quadrupeds have been ascertained and classed, 

 of which forty-nine are of extinct species. It is 

 remarkable, that oviparous quadrupeds are ge- 

 nerally found in more ancient strata than the 

 viviparous tribes. A few bones of marine ani- 

 mals, such as seals, are found in the shell lime- 



