106 FOS:iL II0I13ES' TEETH. 



do not extract them. Prof. Yotiatt doubtless meant 

 to say they should be extracted. 



As Eemnant teeth are found functionally devel- 

 oped in the jaws of fossil horses — in which they were 

 the largest of all the teeth — a few extracts from the 

 works of well-known men concerning fossil horses and 

 their teeth will be appropriate as a conclusion to this 

 chapter. Prof Kichard Owen says ("Odontography," 

 vol. i, p. 575): 



" Cuvier was unable, from the materials at his com- 

 mand, to detect any characters in the bones or teeth 

 of the different existing species of Equus, or in the 

 fossil remains of the same genus, by which he could 

 distinguish them, save by their difference of size. 

 Among the numerous teeth of a species o{ Equus as 

 . large as a horse fourteen and a half hands high, col- 

 lected from the Oreston cavernous fissures, 1 have 

 found specimens clearly indicating two distinct spe- 

 cies, so fiLir as specific differences may be founded on 

 well-marked modifications of the teeth. 



"One of these, like the ordmB^ij Fquus fossilis of 

 the drift and pleistocene formations, differs from the 

 existing Equus cabalhcs by the minor transverse diam- 

 eter of the molar teeth; the other, in the more com- 

 plex and elegant plication of the enamel,* and in the 



* In Prof. Owen's " History of British Fossil Mammals and 

 Birds" (pp. 39;J-4), the " eh^gaut plication of the enamel" on 

 the Grown of this tooth is illustrated. Prof. Owen says : " Fig. 

 153 illustrates the character, ahove adverted to, of the complex 

 plication of the enamel, as it appears on the g-rinding- surface of 

 a partially worn upper molar tooth, the second of the right side. 

 Tlie length of this tooth is three inches four lines, and the fangs 

 had not begun to be formed. One cannot view the elegant fold- 

 ings of the enamel ia the present fossil teeth, and in those of 



