2 FOSSIL MAMMALIA OF THE 



my friend Prof. Buckland, who exclaimed against my retaining both, and the other I lent 

 to him some time ago. Dr. Buckland's specimen, which wants incisor and canine teeth, 

 has been examined by M. Cuvier, and is figured by M. Prevost as an illustration to his 

 ' Observations sur les schistes calcaires oolitiques de Stonesfield en Angleterre.'^" 



The other and more perfect specimen is described by Broderip in the ' Zoological 

 Journal,' 8vo, vol. iii (1828), p. 408, pi. xi, from which the above quotation is taken. 



Both professor and pupil believed in the mammalian nature of the fossil jaws thus 

 acquired. But the exceptional character of remains of that high grade of organization in 

 strata so ancient as Buckland had satisfied himself was the tilestone of Stonesfield, induced 

 them to hold back the announcement of the discovery until they had the sanction of 

 the great Palaeontologist of the period. 



This they had the gratification to receive on the occasion of the visit which Baron 

 Cuvier paid to the University of Oxford in the year 1818, when he pronounced 

 Dr. Buckland's specimen to be mammalian, resembling the jaw of a Didelphys. 



So encouraged and confirmed in his belief, Dr. Buckland announced the fact in his 

 " Memoir on the Meyalosaiirus,"^ pubhshed in 1823, and referred the jaw, on the 

 authority of Cuvier, to the genus Bldeljphp, although there is little doubt that Cuvier 

 used the term in a wider sense than it signifies in modern systems of Mammalogy. 



In 1825 M. Prevost, in a paper on the geology of Stonesfield, in the ' Annales des 

 Sciences,' vol. iv, p. 396, refers to the specimen in the following words : — " Cette piece 

 rmique etait conservee dans la collection de I'unversite d'Oxford, lorsque M. Cuvier la vit 

 en 1818. Une inspection rapide fit dire a ce savant anatomiste qu'elle avait des rapports 

 avec la machoire de quelque Didelphe.'' Baron Cuvier himself, in the concluding volume 

 of his great work on ' Fossil Remains,' pubhshed in 1825, appended the following note : — 

 " M. Prevost, who is at present travelling in England, has just sent me a drawing of one 

 of these jaws ; it confirms me in the idea which my first inspection gave me of it. It is 

 that of a small Carnassial, the jaws of which bear much resemblance to those of the 

 Opossums ; but it has ten teeth in a row, a number which no known Carnassial displays. 

 At all events, if this animal be really from the schist of Stonesfield, it is a most remarkable 

 exception to an otherwise very general rule, that the strata of that high antiquity do not 

 contain the remains of Mammals."^ 



The above statements did excite close inquiry, first in regard to the geological relations 

 of the bed of the fossil, and next as to the zoological characters of the fossil itself. 



The arguments by which M. Prevost endeavoured to invalidate the conclusions of 

 Buckland as to the relative position of the oolitic tilestone were satisfactorily rebutted 

 by Dr. Fitton.* The antiquity of this bed (No. 8, fig. 2, p. 11), could not be reduced to 



' 'Annales des Sciences Nat.,' Avril, 1825. 



2 'Transactions of the Geological Society of London,' 4to, vol. i (2nd series), p. 399. 



^ ' Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles,' 4to, vol. v, pt. ii, p. 349. 



* 'Zoological Journal,' vol. iii, p. 402, 1828. 



