44 

 OEDER 8. DEINOTHEBJA. 1 



DEINOTHEBIUM, 1 ToiODOK.* 



Teeth of two kinds only, the canines being absent ; bones dense ; 

 occipital region depressed, sloping from the condyles upwards and 

 forwards ; nasal aperture large, placed high up the skull ; nasal bones 

 short and salient ; occipital condyles in the same line of direction with 

 the longitudinal axis of the skull. 



Family I. DEINOTHEKIOHm 

 Genus DEINOTHEEIUM, 1 Kaup. 



A cranium nearly perfect, and of about four feet in length, was dis- 

 covered near Eppelsheim, in 1836, by M. Klipstein, in a sandstone 

 deposit of the Meiocene period, a period, I may observe, prolific in 

 yielding peculiarly interesting fossil remains of species either wholly 

 extinct or entirely superseded by new types, or of those still extant, 

 but which seem to have now first sprung into existence, such, for 

 example, are the Deinotherium, the Mastodon, the Zeuglodon, and the 

 Deer tribe of the present day. 



It is from the structure of this remarkable skull that the following 

 characters, descriptive of the family and probable habits of the animals 

 when living, are arrived at ; but until other portions of the skeleton 

 are exhumed, the external form and the exact position of the Deinothe- 

 rioidae must remain a matter of simple conjecture. 



Incisors ^, canines , molars | = 22 ? 



The extremity of the upper jaw being mutilated, the presence or 

 absence of the superior incisive teeth cannot be defined. The inferior 

 incisors, however, are well preserved and highly characteristic ; they 

 are two in number, in close contiguity with each other, very large, 

 tusk-like in form, with the ivory disposed in concentric striae and 

 embedded in enormous sockets. These, the tusks and sockets, bend 

 abruptly downwards, almost vertically, maintaining, however, a gentle 

 backward curve throughout. In the male the tusks are said to be two 

 feet long, while those of the females are only about half that length. 

 The molars are of comparative moderate size, and have their upper 

 surfaces divided by two transverse ridges, excepting the middle one of 

 each ramus and the first of the lower jaw ; the former possessing three, 

 and the latter only one, of these transverse ridges. 



1 Stivds awful, and Gijpiov beast. 

 3 T^OJ/ a bow, and oSofo a tooth. 



