Prof. Owen on Life and Species, 37 
to discern what I believed, and still hold, to be a tendency to a 
more generalized or less specialized, organization as species re- 
cede in date of existence from the present time.* Hven in- 
stances which to some have appeared to oppose the rule, really 
exemplify it. The little marsupial carnivore, e, g., of the Pur- 
beck beds, Playiaulax (p. 294, fig. 234,) retained the typical 
number of premolars (p. 1-4,) all of them being carnassials : 
the more modified pliocene Thylacoleo had them reduced to 
So 
sums and Dasyures: the oolitic Amphitheria and Spalacotheria 
manifest an earlier and more generalized type of dentition in 
the great number and similarity of character of their small 
molars. Both Anoplotherium and Paleotherium, with the ma- 
jority of eocene placental Mammals, had the type-dentition of 
diphyodonts.t 
The two notable examples of Cuvier’s powers of restora- 
tion, viewed as Pachyderms, must have seemed widely different 
from any of the existing species of the order, and were so 
deemed. The Anoplotherium more especially, among its singu- 
lar peculiarities, unexpectedly exemplified one dental character, 
previously known only in the human su pject. These seeming 
ee ee ee ee ee ee ee age ee 
* coxiix, Ed. 1843, pp. 129, 165; Ed. 
Xvu’, pp. 1, 361, passim. Agassiz had bee: 
e. 
8: 524, CLXxx, p. 361. 
G . p. 367, 
