Mr. J. M'Clelland on Indian Cyprinidffi. 11.3 



there are no cutting teeth, the use of these in gathering food 

 being superseded by the trunk. In all animals possessed of such 

 an organ, prehensile and cutting teeth a))pear to be less pro- 

 minent according to the degree of its development; of this we 

 have instances in the Tapirs and Edentates. In the Sarco- 

 borince the incisors and prehensile teeth are represented by a 

 formidable knob on the symphysis of the lower jaw ; and in the 

 Pieonomince, where even this symbol is wanting, we find such 

 of the genera as are without strong muscular appendages to 

 the snout, furnished with a cartilaginous rim to the mouth, 

 which in some, as the Gonorhvnchs, is confined to the edge 

 of the lower lip, as a covering or defence when employed in 

 detaching their peculiar food from the rocks to which it is 

 fixed, and may for this reason be considered as the last sem- 

 blance of a structure equivalent to cutting teeth* ; but in the 

 Cirrhins even this is quite deficient. Nor does the analogy 

 between these fishes and proboscidian quadrupeds end here : 

 the presence of cutting teeth implies a strong solid union of 

 the two bony limbs of the lower jaw at the symphysis for their 

 insertion ; but in the Edentates and Elephants the symphysis 

 is remarkably feeble, the two sides of the jaw being nearly 

 separated by a deep fissure, almost detaching its limbs from 

 each other, as actually occurs in the Cirrhins, with which I in- 

 clude Labeos, which are also furnished with similar prehensile 

 organs in the form of thick pendulous lips. So many corre- 

 sponding circumstances between animals so remote from each 

 other in the scale of affinity cannot be referred merely to co- 

 incidence, but rather to a law of symbolical representation, by 

 which the same type appears throughout an infinity of forms 

 in the several classes. 



34. If Cyprinidce be a rasorial gi'oup, as the above analogies 

 of their most perfect forms with rasorial quadrupeds would 

 seem to indicate, the same relation should appear on contrast- 

 ing them with other classes, the con'esponding points beco- 

 ming more striking or faint in proportion as the groups with 

 which they are compared are contiguous or remote from them ; 

 therefore, as birds are nearer to fishes than quadrupeds, the 

 comparison of analogous types between these classes should 

 afford more striking results than those I have cited. 



* Mr. Evans pointed out to me a peculiarity, for which lie coiild see no 

 object, in our skeleton of an Indian Rhinoceros, consisting of two minute 

 incisors scarcely larger than those of a Rabbit, and hardly projecting from 

 the alveolar ; yet those teeth, so small as to be utterly unfit for any useful 

 purpose, are found in every individual of the species. We can only regard 

 these, and all such organs, of which the animal kingdom presents innume- 

 rable examples, as the characters by which nature distinguishes her various 

 types. 



Ann. c^ Mag. N. Hist. Vol. viii. I 



