422 DR. C. I. FORSYTH MAJOR O^ DENTAL . [Mar. 15, 



Goa. Dry skull, No. 56.10.1.2. The deciduous molars still in 

 place ; m. 3 had not vet cut the gum. Hoi-izontally directed 

 alveoli of the lost upper canines are to be seen in the usual 

 place. 



From this survey of what is at present known about these 

 rudimentary canines, it would appear that, with the exception of 

 JV^eotragtcs {2^7/g7nceus), they never cut the gum, and are usually 

 dropped very early in life, so that in the great majority of 

 cases they are perfectly functionless. Although so few cases have 

 been recorded, they represent the princij)al groups of Antelopes ; 

 and I feel sure that calcified rudimentai-y milk-canines will be 

 found to be normally present in all foetal and most ^'ery young 

 Antelojjes, and that it is only owing to the great scarcity of fcetal 

 and very young skulls in oui- Museums that they have not been 

 observed more frequently. 



In the earliest known undoubted Antelopes, from the Middle 

 Miocene, the anterior portion of the maxillary is never preserved. 

 In the same deposits occur detached upper canines of Ruminants. 

 These become much more numerous in the Oligocene, where they 

 are besides not unfrequently met with in place in more or less 

 complete skulls ; and it has always been assumed as a matter of 

 course that all these remains are those of either Cervida? or 

 Tragulidfe. Since, however, we may conclude, fi-om the vanishing- 

 rudiments present in recent Anteloj)es, that the early representatives 

 of the family were provided with functional upper canines, the 

 presence of the latter in remains of Tertiar}' Ruminants can 

 cei'tainly no longer be considered in itself as a reason for excluding 

 the Antelopes. The Oligocene Gelocus, e. g., has been repeatedly 

 associated with the Tragulida? ; but it might more appropriately 

 been termed an ancestral Antelope. 



The "Anlagen " of the upper canine and the lateral (third) incisor 

 have been demonstrated and carefully studied in early fcetal stages 

 of the domestic sheep and oxen (Goodsir, Plana, Pouchet et Chabry, 

 M-Byo, A. Hoffmann, Rose und Bartels, and others) ; but I do not 

 know that calcified upper canines have ever been observed in 

 either Ovines or Bovines ; neither is there a, trace of their alveoli 

 in a fcetal Giraffe in the Natural History Museum. 



III. Additional minute cheek-tooth in the mandible of a Tertiary 

 Shreiv, " Sorex pusiUus IT. v. Mey.. var. grivensis Dep." 

 (text-fig. 82 A, B, p. 423). 



In the Shrew family (Soricida?) the number of the upper teeth 

 varies considerably according to the different genera and even 

 species ; it is, however, remarkably constant in the lower jaw of 

 recent Shi-ews, in which, with one exception jjointed out by Dobson 

 [Myosorex variics Gray), there are invariably six teeth, viz. three 

 true molars, and two minute teeth, situated between the anterior 

 true molar and the large anterior procumbent incisor. 



W. B. Scott has described a Shrew (^Protosorex crassus Scott 



