30 AMPHITHERIID^E. 



minative and analogical powers of so many philosophic 

 naturalists, and have excited such warm discussion, are 

 the well-known small under-jaws from the oolitic calca- 

 reous slate at Stonesfield, near Oxford, first indicated as 

 evidence of the Mammalian class by Dr. Buckland, in 

 his celebrated memoir on the Megalosaurus, published in 

 1823, in the " Transactions of the Geological Society of 

 London, 1 '* and there referred, on the authority of Cuvier, 

 to the genus Didelphys. 



In regard to the value of that authority in this particular 

 instance, M. Prevost has informed us that Baron Cuvier ex- 

 amined the specimen, (fig. 16,) at that time unique, during a 

 visit which he paid to the University of Oxford, in 1818, 

 and that a cursory inspection led that learned anatomist 

 to say, that it had some resemblance or affinity to the 

 jaw of a Didelphys.^ Cuvier, himself, has added to the 

 last volume of the second edition of the Ossemens fossiles, 

 4to., 1825, the following note : " M. Prevost, who is at 

 present travelling in England, has just sent me a drawing of 

 one of these jaws ; it confirms me in the idea which my first 

 inspection gave me of it. It is that of a small Carnivore, 

 (Carnassier,) the jaws of which bear much resemblance 

 to those of the Opossums ; but it has ten teeth in a row, 

 a number which no known Carnivore displays. At all 

 events, if this animal be really from the schist of Stones- 

 field, it is a most remarkable exception to an other- 

 wise very general rule, that the strata of that high anti- 

 quity do not contain the remains of Mammals.'" 



The statement did, in fact, soon excite close and sceptical 



* Vol. i. Second Series, p. 399. 



t Cette piece unique 6tait conserve'e dans la collection de 1'universite' d'Ox- 

 ford, lorsque M. Cuvier la vit en 1818. Une inspection rapide fit dire a ce sa- 

 vant anatomiste qu'elle avait des rapports avec la machoire de quelque Didelphe." 

 Prevost in " Annales des Sciences," iv. 182.5, p. 396. 



