﻿LEIDY'S DESCRIPTION OP REMAINS OF EXTINCT MAMMALIA. 167 



middle of its course by the maxillo-intermaxillary suture, which descends at the side 

 of the jaw parallel with the nasal border, and on the palate carves inward and 

 advances as far as the position of the posterior third of the orifice of the intermax- 

 illary alveolus. 



Plate 17, fig. 8. — Inferior view of a fragment of the upper jaw of Camehps Kansanus. 

 fig. 9. — Outer view of the same specimen, 

 fig. 10. — Transverse section of the tooth contained in the same specimen. 



Canis prim^evus, Leidy. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., vii, 200. 



This name is proposed for an extinct species of wolf supposed to be indicated by a 

 fragment of a skull, discovered by Mr. Francis A. Lincke, in association with remains 

 of Megalonyx Jeffersonii, Bison americanus, Cervus virginianus, Equus americanus, and 

 Tapirus Haysii, in the banks of the Ohio River, near the mouth of Pigeon Creek, a 

 short distance below Evansville, Indiana. The specimen, which with others were 

 kindly borrowed for my inspection by Dr. J. G. Norwood, of New Harmony, consists 

 of the left upper maxillary bone containing the back five molar teeth, which are 

 nearly entire except the penultimate tooth. 



The fragment on comparison with the corresponding portion of the skull of the common 

 wolf of Europe, and its american congeners, differs only in being larger and in present- 

 ing slight variations in the teeth, not however greater than those found among 

 different varieties, or perhaps even individuals of recent wolves. 



Certain naturalists may regard the fossil as indicative of a variety only of the 

 Canis lupus, and of the correctness of such a view, an attempt will not be made here 

 to decide. Naturalists have not yet systematized that knowledge through which they 

 practically estimate the value of characters determining a species. What may be 

 viewed as distinct subgenera by one will be considered as only distinct species by 

 another, and a third may view both as varieties or races. In the use of these words, 

 or rather in the attempt to define them, we go too far when we associate them with 

 the nature of the origin of the beings in question. We know nothing whatever in 

 relation to the origin of living beings, and even we cannot positively deny that life 

 connected with some form was not co-eternal with time, space, and matter, and that 

 all living beings have not successively and divergingly ascended from the lowest 

 types. 



To return to a consideration of the fossil : the maxilla has the same form as the 

 corresponding bone of recent wolves with which I have had the opportunitj' of com- 

 paring it. The infra orbital foramen, is vertically oval, directed forward, and is on a 

 line vertical to the interval of the third and fourth molar teeth. 



The crown of the penultimate molar tooth is rather less concave posteriorly than 

 in any recent specimens under inspection; and its antero-posterior diameter internally 

 is greater in relation with the same diameter externally ; or in other words the tooth 



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