48 AMPHITHERIID.E. 



cuspid, according to the species. M. M. Agassiz and De 

 Blainville have supposed that the Stonesfield fossils pre- 

 sented a form of tooth resembling most those of such seals 

 amongst Mammalia ; but the teeth of all the Seal-tribe 

 offer a well-marked peculiarity in their thick and ven- 

 tricose fangs, to which character those of the AmpMthe- 

 riuin offer no approximation, but, on the contrary, have 

 long and slender fangs, as in the small marsupial and 

 placental Insectivora : besides, no species of Seal presents 

 the backward prolongation of the angle of the jaw demon- 

 strated by the fossil AmpJiitkeria. 



The term ' Amphibia,' in the concluding summary of 

 M. de Blainville's second memoir, has reference not to the 

 cold-blooded Amphibia of Linnaeus and the German natu- 

 ralists, but to the above-cited and last-expressed opinion 

 of M. Agassiz, who, admitting the Stonesfield fossils to be 

 certainly those of mammals, rejects them from the marsu- 

 pial and insectivorous orders, observing that " each sepa- 

 rate tooth resembles the greater part of those of seals, 

 near which group (amphibious Carnivora) the animal to 

 which the jaws belonged should form a distinct genus. 

 In fact, 11 adds M. Agassiz, " the aspect of these fossil 

 fragments is so peculiar, that it draws our attention to- 

 wards aquatic animals rather than away from them." 



But, in addition to the anatomical objections above 

 adduced, it may be urged, that, though an extinct mam- 

 miferous animal, not larger than the water-shrew, should 

 have been of aquatic habits, it does not follow that, there- 

 fore, it was piscivorous, and endowed with the instincts 

 and organization of a Seal ; in the absence of any 

 evidence of the locomotive extremities, the affinity of 

 the diminutive Mammalia of the Stonesfield epoch to the 

 Phocidtz, could, at best, but be matter of conjecture, and 



