300 TAP1RO1DA. 



Tapir of Cuvier, for example, have as yet been found in 

 the older pliocene crag of England ; although the asso- 

 ciation of this gigantic Pachyderm with the Mastodon 

 angustidens, in the contemporary formations of Eppels- 

 heim and France, has been attested by numerous and 

 well preserved fossils, including the entire cranium. 



The molar teeth of the Dinothere had their grinding 

 surface crossed by high and sharp transverse ridges, like 

 those of the Mastodon giganteus ; but, in most of the 

 teeth, the ridges were restricted to the same number, two, 

 which characterizes the molars of the Tapir. The tusks 

 of the lower jaw, which are early lost in one sex of the 

 Mastodons, were retained in both sexes of the Dinothere 

 with a greater and indeed peculiar degree of downward 

 curvature, yet still manifesting the analogy to the Mas- 

 todons by their superior size in the male Dinothere. 



These points of resemblance would signify compara- 

 tively little in the inquiry into the natural progression 

 of the affinities of the Pachyderms, had the Dinothere 

 been a gigantic Herbivorous Cetacean, as some have con- 

 jectured; but, in addition to the arguments in favour of 

 its true Pachydermal character derived by Dr. Kaup * 

 from the texture of the cranial bones, their richly de- 

 veloped air-cells, the deep implantation of the petro-tym- 

 panic bone of the organ of hearing, and other parti- 

 culars of minor import, I may adduce the texture of 

 the dental substances of the molar teeth, and the ver- 

 tical displacement and succession of the small deciduous 

 anterior molars by true premolars, or " dents de remplace- 

 ment" in support of the view here taken of the position 

 of the genus Dinotherium in the Pachydermal series, as a 

 link between Mastodon and Lophiodon. 



* Akten der Urwelt, 8vo, 1841, p. 52. 



