FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 113 



department of Lot-et-Garonne which exhibited certain peculi- 

 arities. 



The genus antracotherium, according to the Baron, held an 

 intermediate place between the palaeotheria, anoplotheria, and 

 swine. 



This is the place to observe on a very striking fact, which 

 the study of the fossils has served to explain. It was an old 

 observation of the Baron's, that the order of the pachydermata, 

 less abounding in genera than other orders, and in which 

 the genera are less naturally connected together, must have 

 suffered losses to which those intervals that interrupt its series 

 are owing. Accordingly, we find the fossil remains of this 

 order in the most immense abundance, developing new and 

 singular forms to our observation. The living species bear no 

 sort of proportion to the lost. Those shades which approxi- 

 mate genera to each other, those intermediate forms, those 

 steps from one genus to another, so common in the other 

 families of the animal kingdom, are wanting here. It was 

 reserved for the science of fossil osteology to recover them from 

 the entrails of the earth, among the races which completed the 

 grand system of animated nature, and whose destruction has 

 produced such wide and striking intervals. Thus we see that, 

 without the study of the fossils, zoology itself must have re- 

 mained an imperfect science, and the laws of inter-approxima- 

 tion, on which natural methods are founded, must have still 

 wanted the most complete and satisfactory evidence of their 

 truth. 



Fossil Ruminantia. 



As the species of ruminantia which occur in the fossil state 

 have been already so accurately described by Major Smith, in 

 that department of the '' Animal Kingdom," the reader must 

 excuse me for confining myself altogether to general observa- 

 tions on this part of my subject. 



The remains of the ruminantia are excessively abundant 



I 



