432 THE ANATOMY OF TEKTEBRATBD ANIMALS. 



Airica, where they are represented by two very distinct 

 forms, to wkicli the names of Loxodon {E. africanus) and 

 Euelephas {E. indicus) proposed by the late Dr. Falconer 

 may be very properly applied. The oldest rocks in which 

 their remains occur are of Miocene age. Fossil remains of 

 elephants occur not only in the old world, but also in both 

 North and South America. 



III. The Hyracoidea. — The genus Hyrax, which is the 

 sole member of this group, was referred by Pallas to the 

 Rodents ; and by Cuvier, who demonstrated that it could 

 not be a Rodent, it was placed among the Ungulata, in the 

 immediate neighbourhood of Rhinoceros, without any better 

 evidence than that afforded by the characters of the molar 

 teeth. Professor Brandt of St. Petersburg, in an elaborate 

 memoir just published, aii-ives at the conchision that it is 

 a " gliriform Ungulate," intermediate, in a certain sense, 

 between the Rodents and the Tlngidata ; but, still, more 

 Ungulate than Rodent. It appears to me to be neither 

 Ungidate nor Rodent, but the type of a distinct order, in 

 many respects intermediate between the Ungulata, on the 

 one hand, and the Rodentia and Insectivora, on the other. 



The small. Rabbit-like, animals comprised in the genus 

 Hyrax are plantigrade, and provided with four visible toes 

 in front and three behind. The nails are not hoof-like, 

 but nearly flat, except the innermost of the hind foot, which 

 is peculiarly curved. The body is covered with fur, and 

 the muffle, or snout, is split, as in the Rodents. There is 

 a pendulous penis, but no scrotum ; and there are four 

 inguinal and two axillary teats. 



There are from twenty-nine to thirty-one dorso-lumbar 

 vertebrae, which is the greatest niim.ber known in any ter- 

 restrial mammal. Twenty-one or twenty-two of these 

 are dorsal. No mammal, except Cholcepvs, the two-toed 

 Sloth, possesses so large a number of dorsal vertebrae as 

 this. The transverse processes of the last lumbar vertebi-a 

 articulate with the sacrum, as is the case in many Ungulate 

 Mammals. In the skull, the post-orbital processes, which are 

 chiefly furnished by the parietal and the jugal, nearly meet. 



