34 AMPHlTHERIID.fi. 



indeed, himself afforded sufficient grounds for such dissent 

 by stating, that " he had convinced himself that the second 

 jaw must have had ten molar teeth, as in the first speci- 

 men ; " the Did. Bucldandi having had only seven, or at 

 most eight, molars. 



In regard to the question of the general affinities of these 

 fossils, M. Valenciennes arrived at the conclusion that the 

 jaw, described and figured by M. Prevost and Dr. Buck- 

 land, not only belonged to a mammalian but likewise to a 

 marsupial animal, and accordingly proposed for it a third 

 generic name, indicative of these presumed affinities, viz., 

 Thylacotherium. 



The arguments of M. Valenciennes were opposed, in a 

 second detailed memoir by M. de Blainville,* who con- 

 cluded by stating, " that he felt himself compelled to pause, 

 at least until fresh evidence was produced, in the conviction 

 that the portions of the fossil jaws found at Stonesfield, 

 certainly did not belong to a marsupial probably not to a 

 mammalian genus, either insectivorous or amphibious 

 that, on the contrary, it was most likely the animal had 

 been oviparous, and, in regard to the opinion, founded on 

 the analogy of the Basilosaurus, a large fossil reptile of 

 America, the teeth of which display the peculiarity of pos- 

 sessing a double root, that it might have been an animal of 

 the Saurian order :" and "that had not M. Agassiz de- 

 cidedly given his opinion against the fossils in question 

 belonging to fishes, he would rather have been led to sup- 

 pose that they might have been the remains of an animal of 

 that class." 



" In conclusion," adds M. de Blainville with naivete, " I 

 ought also to announce to the Academy, that the scientific 



* " Nouveaux Doutes sur le pretendu Didelphe de Stonesfield ; Comptes 

 rendus," October 6th, 1838, p. 727. 



