1847. | OWEN ON ENGLISH EOCENE MAMMALIA. 35 
the lamina cribriformis ethmoidet. The frontal sinuses do not extend 
further backwards in this cranium than above the rhinencephalic 
chamber. 
The frontonasal suture runs, with a very slight bend backwards, 
across the cranium, parallel with the fore-part of the orbits. “The 
nasal bones are as broad at their origin as the frontals, and are bent 
down externally to join the lachrymals: their apices are broken off. 
The anterior border of the maxillaries is entire, and so much of the 
premaxillaries is preserved as demonstrates that they were separated 
from the nasals by about an inch of the maxillaries, and that these 
concurred with the premaxillaries and nasals to form the contour of 
the anterior bony nostrils, which were thus surrounded by six 
bones, as in the Palzeotheres, mstead of by four, as im the Anoplo- 
theres. The maxillaries ascend more rapidly, or with a nearer ap- 
proach to verticality, in joining the nasals than in the Paleeotheres : so 
that with regard to the osseous walls of the face anterior to the orbits 
and to the shape of the anterior nostril, the Paloplothere manifests 
again a character intermediate between the Paleeothere and Anoplo- 
there. The facial plate of the maxillary is perforated by a single 
antorbital foramen 5 millimeters in diameter, situated 1 ich (23 cen- 
timeters) anterior to the orbit, and 14 lines (3 centimeters) behind the 
nasal border, and 7 lines (14 centimeter) above the alveolar border of 
the maxillary. The bony palate is much crushed, but seems to have 
terminated by a concave border opposite the interspace between the 
penultimate and last molar. 
The premaxillaries are long, slender, destined almost exclusively to 
the support of the six incisors, and to give passage to the incisive or 
prepalatine nerves and vessels, which impressed their mesial sides with 
an oblique channel. The symphysis of the premaxillaries had not 
been obliterated, as it becomes in the Tapir; and the premaxillaries 
had been divaricated by external pressure or violence before the sur- 
rounding matrix had hardened and fixed them m that position. 
There are other marks of violence which have evidently been left 
upon this skull before it became enveloped by the matrix, which fills 
the cracks and crevices of the crushed parts. Over the left fronto- 
nasal suture there is a depression and comminuted fracture of the 
skull, inflicted as it seems by the blow or pressure of a conical in- 
strument of the size of a large tooth of a crocodile: a similarly com- 
minuted fracture exists on the bony palate a little behind the vertical 
parallel of the upper one. The opposite sides of the facial bones have 
been partially crushed and similarly driven in, just in front of the 
orbits ; and this latter compression seems to have started asunder and 
opened the symphysis. of the premaxillary bones. I strongly suspect 
that these injuries were inflicted on the recent head by the jaws and 
teeth of a crocodile. The great inferior canine tusk, penetrating the 
interspace of the rami of the lower jaw, would crush the palate in the 
attempt to meet the upper canine, which would drive in the opposing 
upper part of the skull by the same bite. Before or after this the 
head has been turned half round, and the same teeth have left the 
traces of another bite at the opposite sides of the face. At all events 
D2 
