Mr. Owen on the Zeuglodon Cetoides. 79 



constituents of the teeth of certain aquatic Mammals, as the Dugong, — afford a body 

 of evidence which is conclusive as to the class of Vertebrata to which the extinct 

 animal has belonged, and point with a high degree of probability to the order and 

 family to which it bore the closest affinities. But the organization of the Zeu- 

 glodon, so far as it is at present known, forbids any closer approximation with the 

 types of existing species. 



The teeth, in their combination of an exaggerated condition of the conjugate 

 form, — which is but indicated in certain teeth of the Dugong, with two distinct 

 fangs, in their oblique position in the jaw, and the irregular interspaces of their 

 alveoli, — present very striking and singular peculiarities ; and when to these dental 

 characters we add the remarkable and abrupt contraction of the distal end of the 

 humerus, which is nevertheless provided with an articulating surface for a gingly- 

 moid joint, and its remarkably diminutive size, — a cetaceous character, which, 

 likewise, is here carried to an extreme, — and when we also consider the dense 

 laminated structure of the ribs, and the third exaggeration of a cetaceous structure 

 in the extreme elongation of the body of the caudal vertebras, — we cannot hesitate 

 in pronouncing the colossal Zeuglodon to have been one of the most extraordinary 

 of the Mammalia which the revolutions of the globe have blotted out of the num- 

 ber of existing beings. 



