from the Isle of Wight. 43 



smaller and more closely approximated tubercles at the posterior part of the 

 tooth, with a third small tubercle in the middle of the interspace between these 

 and the next pair of tubercles. The Cuvierian fossils did not afford the means of 

 making a comparison between the Chceropotamus and these species of the Hog 

 tribe in this particular ; but in the present specimen we see that the last molar of 

 the lower jaw of the Chcsropotamus presents the same additional posterior tubercles 

 as in the Peccari, and thus affords an additional corroboration of the view taken 

 by Cuvier with regard to its affinities. The other teeth correspond in every re- 

 spect with the descriptions and figures in the Ossemens Fossiles ; but the fossil here 

 described yields another fact essential in characterizing the genus, and which the 

 fragments in Cuvier's possession were too imperfect to afford, viz. the exact num- 

 ber of molar teeth in the lower jaw, which is twelve. Of these the three posterior 

 teeth on each side are tuberculate, or true molars ; and the three anterior ones 

 are compressed and conical, or false molars ; the latter have each two roots, and 

 are relatively larger than in the Hog tribe. The tooth anterior to the grinders, 

 and which from its shape Cuvier regarded as a canine, is situated closer to the 

 symphysis of the jaw than in any of the existing SuidcB ; but the Peccari, in this 

 respect also, comes nearest to the Chcsropotamus. The grinders, as in the Peccari, 

 are narrower in the lower than the upper jaw. On the outer surface of the jaw, 

 near its anterior extremity, the vascular foramina are numerous, as in the jaws of 

 the Hog tribe*. 



The occasional carnivorous propensities of the common Hog are well known ; 

 and they correspond with the organization of this genus, which offers the near- 

 est resemblance among the existing Pachyderms to the carnivorous type of struc- 

 ture. In the extinct Cheeropotamus we have another of those beautiful examples 

 in Palaeontology of links tending to complete a chain of affinities which the revolu- 

 tions of the earth's surface has interrupted, as it were^ and for a time concealed 

 from our view. It is interesting also to perceive that the living sub-genus of the 

 Hog tribe which most resembles the Charopotamus should be confined to the South 

 American continent, where the Llama and Tapir, the nearest living analogues of 

 the Anoplotherian and Palseotherian associates of the Chceropotamus, now exist, 

 and which was formerly inhabited by a genus — Macrauchenia, which connects the 

 Llama with the Palseotheref- 



* The dental formula of Chceropotamus may be thus expressed : — 



Denies prim.? laniarii j^ ; molares spurii g^ ; molares |^ ; molares spurii compressiusculi, conici 

 molares veri quadrituberculati, postremi in maxilla inferiore sextuberculati. 



t Seeing that the Ungulate Mammalia make the nearest approach to the Carnivora in the Hog tribe, 

 we naturally inquire to which of the groups of the Ungulata do the aberrant Carnivora tend. Now the 



g2 



