28 Till- MAMMALIA. 



amphibian or reptile species. Now the fact 

 that direct descendants of reptiles, with a uniform 

 set of teeth, should acquire distinctive corner teeth 

 canines) in consequence of their tearing their vic- 

 uibit of beasts of prey, and that 

 in mammals have acquired these teeth also, 

 owing to their having taken to flesh-eating, is a 

 'mergence that can be most satisfactorily ex- 

 plained as the result of the same activity upon 

 similar or the same developments in the earlier 

 forms of teeth. It is, as we have already said, 

 a case of convergence of the most superficial kind. 

 Among living reptiles in the Hatteria, Vroimistic 

 Njiiniju's, and also a species of agama we meet 

 with advances towards the dentition of the Car- 

 nivora. But even when the canine is followed at 

 first by small pointed teeth, and then by broader 

 ones, there is nothing, either here or in the case of 

 the fossil African reptiles, that can be pointed out 

 ; - ' peculiar molars with broad crowns ' (Wieders- 

 lieim). 



It is self-evident that gm-n a like beginning 



and like circumstances, we will more readily meet 



witli similar and the same phenomena than where 



there was in.-quality to start with. In other 



tic convergenciea occur most fro- 



