-1847.| OWEN ON EXTINCT ANTHRACOTHERIOID QUADRUPEDS. 123 
logy in particular. If zoologists were disposed to sink the minor cha- 
racters of particular form, number and position of the secondary cusps 
and ridges of the true molar teeth, and of the form, proportions and. 
position of the false or premolar teeth, then Cheropotamus might 
merge, not indeed into Sus, but into Dicotyles or into Anthracotherium, 
according to the future determination of the number and kind of its 
upper incisors and canines. The best interests of science would seem 
however to be served by availing ourselves of the distinctions clearly 
shown by the characters of the teeth already known, to demonstrate 
that there once existed a quadruped which was neither a Sus, a Di- 
cotyles, nor an Anthracotherium; and such demonstrated difference 
appears to be most conveniently expressed by the generic or the sub- 
generic name, Cheropotamus, devised by Cuvier. In like manner, 
therefore, it seems to me to be desirable not to mask the equally de- 
monstrable and equally important differential characters in the den- 
tition of the Hyopotamus, by extending to it the generic name of 
Anthracotherium, on the principle by which M. de Blainville would 
apply that name to Dichodon and Cheropotamus ; for such an exten- 
sion of the original signification of a name only serves to hide essential 
distinctions which exist in nature, and to render Cuvier’s generic name 
Anthracotherium vague and uncertain. 
Anthracotherium, as represented by dnthr. magnum, A. minus, and. 
A. minimum ; Hyopotamus, as represented by Hyopotamus vectianus; 
Merycopotamus, as represented by the Himalayan species, on which 
the genus was founded by Cautley and Falconer; Cheropotamus, as 
represented by the Cher. Cuvieri, seu Parisiensis; Dichodon, as 
represented by Dich. cuspidatus ; Hyracotherium, as represented by 
Hyr. leporinum and Hyr. cuniculus; Dicotyles, as represented by 
the existing Peccaries of South America,—are respectively so man 
generic or subgeneric forms of one great natural group of Artiodactyle 
(even-toed) Ungulates, and form as many links in a chain connecting 
the now widely-dissevered genera Sus, Hippopotamus, Aunulosherian 
and Camelus*. | 
M. de Blainville has lost or voluntarily abandoned the opportunity 
afforded him by the instructive specimen of Dichodon at his command, 
to poit out the nature and true zoological status of one of those in- 
teresting links, by referrmmg that specimen to the genus Anthraco- 
therium. The three molar teeth figured under that name in “G. 
Anthracotherium, pl. 1.”’ of the last published fasciculus of the 
‘Ostéographie’ (f. xxi.), are the last premolar and first and second 
true molars of the Dichodon; they could only be supposed to belong 
to Anthracotherium by reversing, as M. de Blainville has done, their 
true position, and regarding the last premolar as the last true molar, 
* The Peccary might seem at first sight to be an exception to the rule, as it has 
three toes on the hind-foot ; but the difference between the condition of these and 
that in the true tridactyle Tapir, or in the Horse, shows that such exception is 
more seeming than real. Only two toes are functionally developed on the hind- 
foot of the Peccary, where they form a symmetrical pair, as in the Hog; but their 
metatarsal bones are confluent, as in Ruminants ; and, instead of having two abor- 
tive or rudimental digits, the Peccary has but one, represented by a little flattened 
style, attached to the base of the ‘ cannon-bone.’ 
