1847.| OWEN ON EXTINCT ANTHRACOTHERIOUD QUADRUPEDS. 121 
that the original might exhibit more of the system requisite for the 
comparison than Cuvier’s figure warranted, but I found this not 
the case. So much however, both of the characters of the bone 
and dental system as that representative of Cuvier’s Cheropota- 
mus manifests, was most precisely repeated by the corresponding 
parts in the Isle of Wight specimen ; and M. Laurillard, whose ex- 
perience and judgement in the comparison of fossil remains are un- 
equalled, pronounced them to be unquestionably parts of the same 
species of animal. The cast of the Isle of Wight Cheropotamus is 
now placed by the side of the original Parisian specimen in the Geo- 
logical Museum at Paris, and the accuracy of my original reference 
of the more complete mandible to the genus and species founded on 
the less complete one may be readily tested. Admitting, however, 
that the under jaw from the Isle of Wight is identical with the 
under jaw from Montmartre, which is the basis of Cuvier’s genus 
Cheropotamus, the accuracy of Cuvier’s ascription of the upper jaw 
figured in the ‘ Ossemens Fossiles,’ 4to, ii. pl. 68, to the same genus 
and species remains to be vindicated. 
M. de Blainville, after asserting how few are the relations between 
the (nearly entire) dentary system of the Isle of Wight mandible, 
and that (very incomplete one) of the Paris basin, and after ad- 
mitting the marks of resemblance which I had pointed out in the 
form and dentition of the lower jaw of the Cheropotamus with those 
in the Peccary, denies that there is any evident resemblance between 
the premolars in the Parisian specimen of Cheropotamus and those 
in the Peccary. He affirms that there is still less resemblance be- 
tween the premolars of the upper jaw of the so-called Cieropotamus 
of the Paris basin and those m the Peccary, and observes, “that it 
will be very difficult to admit that one species of animal should so 
much resemble another by its lower jaw, and yet have scarcely an 
such resemblance in its upper jaw.” Whence he concludes that the 
upper jaw attributed by Cuvier to the Cheropotamus belongs to the 
genus Anthracotherium, and that the lower jaw attributed by me to 
the Cheropotamus belongs to the genus Sus. 
The first fallacy in the reasoning leading to the above conclusion is 
in the statement implying that the premolars of the mandible from 
the Isle of Wight resemble those of the Peccary, whilst the premolars 
of the mandible from the Paris basin do not. The descriptions and 
figures of the two specimens copied by M. de Blainville demonstrate 
equally with the original figures by Cuvier and myself, that what- 
ever amount of similarity or difference one of these specimens of the 
lower jaw of Cheropotamus offers in comparison with that of the 
Peccary, is precisely repeated in the other specimen. The value of 
M. de Blainville’s argument will depend, therefore, upon the deter- 
mination of the relative amount of resemblance which the almost 
entire lower jaw of the Cheropotamus from the Isle of Wight and 
the almost complete upper jaw of the Cheropotamus from the Paris 
basin respectively present to the same parts in the Peccary. The 
comparison in both is at present restricted to the premolar and molar 
teeth. 
K 2 
