CAMEL. 



227 



XI. ON THE FOSSIL CAMEL OF THE SEWALIK 



HILLS.' 



BT HUGH FALCONER, JI.D., AND CAPTAIN P. T. CAUTLEY. 



Amongst the most interesting- of the fossil remains of 

 Mammalia, which have been found in the Sewalik strata, the 

 Camel may, undoubtedly, take up a high position. Inde- 

 pendently of the speculations which the remains of this genus 

 would lead to, relatively to the form and features of the 

 country previously to their entombment, the circumstance of 

 the Camel having been up to this period a desideratum in 

 fossil zoology adds very considerably to the interest of the 

 present discovery. 



The only^ remain which we find noted is in Cnvier's ' Osse- 

 men's Fossiles,' where a reference is made to the Wferycotherium 

 Sibericum of M. Bojanus, which Cuvier decides to be an un- 

 doubted species of Dromedary. This remain consists of three 

 teeth brought by a merchant from Siberia ; the place or 

 stratum in which it was found is unknown, and Cuvier's re- 

 mark — ' Si les trois dents que M. Bojanus vient de publier 

 sont effectivement fossiles ' — throws an uncertainty even on 

 its antiquity. 



In the identification of the Sewalik fossil there can be no 

 doubt ; and although we should have preferred delaying this 

 paper until we had a perfect skull, we may, perhaps, be ex- 

 cused for entering upon the description, since the portions of 

 the skeleton we already possess, including parts of the skull, 

 are sufB.ciently marked to remove all doubts as to the animal 

 to which they belonged. 



The Camel is placed in systematic arrangements at the 



p. 507. Besides the Merycotherium, 

 Cuvier also notices in the same article 

 a fossil femur, of which he says ' qui 

 ressemble aussi beaucoup, dans ce qui 

 en reste, a celui d'un chameau.' A draw- 

 ing of the specimen, which was found 

 near Montpellier, was sent by M. Marcel 

 de Serre to Cuvier. Our information 

 does not extend later than the third 

 edition of the Ossemen Fossiles, in 1 825. 



' Eeprinted from the 

 searches,' vol. xis. p. 115. 



' Asiatic Re- 

 1836. Subse- 

 quently to the publication of this paper, 

 many additional remains of the Sewalik 

 camel, including the vertebrae and 

 the bones of the anterior and posterior 

 extremities, were figured in the 'Fauna 

 Antiq. Sivalensis' (Plates Ixxxvi. to xc), 

 to the description of which the reader 

 is referred. — L^^.] 

 ^ Ossemens Fossiles, torn. v. part ii. 



Q 2 



