226 FAUNA ANTIQUA SIVALENSIS. 



Binstead (Geol. Trans., Series II. vol. iii. p. 451), which is the A. cer- 

 vinum of Professor Owen {idem, vol. vi. p, 45), admitted on all hands to 

 be prodigiously like a musk deer, while Anop. {Chal.) Sivalense and 

 the Chalicotheriiim Goldfussi press in the direction of rhinoceros. 

 Should the two separate cannon bones have proved constant in all the 

 species now ranked imder Anoplotherium and been limited, as Cuvier 

 imagined, to them, the character might have been better used to define 

 a group of genera than as the means of defining a genus. But we have 

 ascertained the singularly interesting fact that the united cannon bones 

 so eloquently handled by the illustrious Cuvier in the ' Discours Prelimi- 

 naire ' as invariably present in the ruminants are subject to exceptions, 

 and no longer ' as certain as any conclusion in physics or morals ; ' nor 

 a mark ' surer than all those of Zadig ' (Disc. Prelim, p. 49). We have 

 had an opportunity of examining the skeleton of the African Moschus 

 aquaticus (Ogilby) described from a living specimenhj Mr. Ogilby in the 

 Zoological ' Proceedings,' and we find that the metacarpals are distinct 

 along their whole length ! with the succentorial toes as much developed 

 as in a Peccary. The fore leg, from the carpus downwards, is indis- 

 tinguishable from that of a Peccary ! We had previously ascertained 

 the same structure in the foot of a fossil ruminant from the Sewalik 

 hills, but believe that the present is the first announcement of the fact 

 in regard to an existing form of this order (see antea, page 196). The 

 deviation from the ordinary ruminant type indicated by the foot is borne 

 out by a series of modifications in the head, bones of the extremity and 

 trunk, all tending in the direction of the Pachydermata. Inasmuch as 

 the Dorcatherium of Kaup breaks down the empirical distinction as to 

 the teeth between the Ruminantia and Pachydermata, so does the 

 Moschus aquaticus in regard to the feet. — [H. F. 1843.] 



