• ;ii 



V ERTEBRATA. 



trial mammalia that ever inhabited the earth; but they must give place to the Dinothcrium, 

 .1 byCavicr as a gigantic tapir, but more recently by Professor Kaup, a distinguished Ger- 

 man naturalist, as a new genus between the tapir ami 1 1 1* - mastodon; and adapted to that lacus- 

 ..ii-liti.-u of the earth which Beems to have been bo common during the deposition of the 

 Its remains have been found in tertiary strata in the south of France, in Austria, 

 Havana, ai d especially in Hesse Darmstadt. It- length must have been as much as eighteen feet. 

 of its mos1 remarkable peculiarities consisted in two enormous tusks at the interior extremity 

 •w. r jaw, v. hich curved downward, like those of the walrus. Its general structure set ms to 

 l i:ix , adapted i<> digging in the grou: d; and for this purpose its feet as well as tusks — pro- 



• • r two beyond the jaw-, which were tour feet long — were intended. It lived prin- 

 ,'iv in the water, like the hippopotamus; and it probably used its tusks for tearing up the 



•' aquatic vegetables, which, as is shown by its teeth, constituted its food. Dr. Buckland 



- also that these tusks might have been useful as an anchor fastened into the bank of a 



river, while the body of the animal floated in the water and slept. They might have been useful 



• to aid in dragging the body out of the water and for defense. 



THE COMMON' DOMESTIC SWIXE. 



THE snihE OR SWINE. 



In this family, of which the common hog may be taken as the type, the nose has considerable 

 •:' motion, but it is not produced into a proboscis-, as in the elephant or even the tapir, 

 nor i> it swelled into a blunt rounded ma>s as in the hippopotamus, but runs into a tapering 

 cylindrical form t.. the extremity, where it is suddenly truncated. The tip is of a fine cartilag- 

 inous nature, and i- principally employed in turning up the earth in search of roots and other 

 arti I. Tic skull is of a pyramidal form, hut the nasal bones are not elevated as in the 



the facial bones arc very large in comparison with the cranium. The jaws arc fur- 

 1 with the three kinds of teeth while the animals are young, but the incisors are always 

 '. and in some cases tall out with increase of age. The canines, on the contrary, are always 

 specially in the males, in which they project from the sides of the mouth; those of 

 lower jaw, from constantly rubbing against their fellows in the upper, are usually sharpened 

 ' a m Ige, and constitute formidable weapons. The molar teeth vary from three to 



. h ride in both jaw-. The feet consist of four toes, of which the two middle ones are 

 isiderably longer and stouter than their fellows, forming a cloven hoof, upon which the animals 

 tie- two lateral toes ate also furnished with hoofs, but they are placed at the back of the 



■ elevation from the ground. I »i f these hinder toes is wanting in some cases, 



tile monstrosities bav< jurred with five toes, and others with a single hoof. -The eyes are 



