AMPHITHERIUM. 41 



of the posterior teeth still permits the recognition of a 

 different conformation of the crown in them, as com- 

 pared with the four remaining anterior molares. The 

 difference in the configuration of the perfect crowns of 

 the molar teeth, in the maxillary ramus of the Amplii- 

 therium at York, is such as to render both easy and certain 

 the distinction of the molares spurii from the molares veri, 

 which is commonly observed in Mammalian quadrupeds, 

 but never in fishes and reptiles. The term ' multicuspid " 

 cannot properly be applied to the anterior or false molars 

 of the Amphitheriwm, which have but one principal cusp, 

 and a minute tubercle, or talon, at one or both sides of 

 its base. 



Of the value of the argument drawn from the colour 

 of the fossils, any one conversant with the varieties of 

 shade, from brown to deep black, which Mammalian fossil 

 teeth present, may judge ; and, on this point, Mr. Ogilby 

 has remarked, " the composition of the teeth cannot be 

 advanced successfully against the mammiferous nature of 

 the fossils, because animal matter preponderates over mine- 

 ral in the teeth of the great majority of the Insectivorous 

 Cheiroptera, as well as in those of the Myrmecobius and 

 other small Marsupials." 



If it were true that the crown of the teeth of the Amphi- 

 therium was supported by 'a long and much contracted 

 cervix, 1 before the fangs were formed, these might be said 

 to be bifid ; but the original specimen of Amphitherium 

 in the Oxford Museum demonstrates the independent 

 origin of two fangs from the base of the crown, and the 

 same fact is as plainly shewn in the Phascolotherium Buck- 

 landi in the British Museum, where the origins of the 

 double fangs are plainly visible above the sockets. 



The cervix of the teeth is extremely short ; in fact the 



