240 DE. FORSYin MAJOR O:^ THE TOOTH OP AN AKT-BEAR. [Mar. 14, 



" The anterior teeth, which O. Thomas ^ has shown to be pre- 

 molars, are stouter and more numerous in the fossil than in the 

 adult recent species, there being four pi'emolars above and below, 

 and, moreover, in the mandibula an eighth tooth, \^'hich, as to its 

 position and shape, may be considered to be the homologue of a 

 canine. In the upper jaw the anterior part of the snout is broken, 

 but there must doubtless have existed a canine too. 



" The bones of the pes present no differences from those of the 

 now living forms, with the exception of the first and fifth meta- 

 tarsals, which are somewhat stouter in the fossil, a fact which 

 leads to the supposition that there is in the recent Orycteropus 

 a tendency towards the reduction of the digits. 



" Thus, on the whole, the fossil approaches closely its African 

 congeners, and gives us no clue as to what might have been the 

 ancestral form of the genus, which we place amongst the Eden- 

 tates, there being no suitable place for it anywhere else. 



" There was a time when Marsupials, Edentates, Lemurouls, and 

 Ratitm were considered as proofs of the former existence of 

 an Antarctic continent, from which, their original home, they were 

 believed to have spread northwards, peopling the various Conti- 

 nents in which they actually exist. Of late years, however, one 

 after the other of these groups have been discovered in the Tertiary 

 deposits of the Northern Hemispheres, in Europe and America. 

 As regards the Struthionida', I have found in Samos a femur which 

 can scarcely be distinguished from the same bone of the African 

 Struthio. Eemains of StrntJiio have, as is well known, likewise 

 been stated, by A. Milne Edwards and Lydekker, to form part of 

 the Siwalik fauna ; and an egg of Struthio has been found in 

 Southern llussia (Gouvernement Cherson) '^. Therefore a more 

 natural explanation of the present distribution of the groups above 

 mentioned is to consider the southern points of the present con- 

 tinental masses as their last refuges, to which they have been 

 driven by later invaders from the Korth ^. 



" The pi-esence of Ortjcteropus in the Ethiopian fauna had re- 

 mained unexplained. The facts adduced this evening show that 

 during the Upper Miocene representatives of this genus existed as 

 far north and eastwards as the isle of Samos and Eastern Persia." 



The following papers were read : — 



^ Oklfielcl Thomas, "On the Milk Dentition in Ori/ctcrojms," Proc. Eoy. 

 Soc. London, vol. xlvii. 1890, pp. 246-248. 

 ^ SlruthioUniug ckcrso7icnsis, Brandt. 

 ^ Of. Haacke (Biolog. Centralblatt, vi. p. 363). 



