128 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL sociETy. [Nov. 3, 
the ‘animaux fossiles voisins des Tapirs ;? and therefore a member of 
his group of Pachyderms ‘a doigts impairs.’ It is true that the direct 
proof of this inference was wanting when the great Reconstructor of 
lost species finally wrote on the genus Lophiodon :—<“ Mais lon ig- 
nore encore plusieurs points essentiels de cette ostéologie, et nommé- 
ment le nombre des doigts 4 chaque pied et la forme des os du 
nez. C’est de la détermination de ces points essentiels que les obser- 
vateurs auront désormais a s occuper.” 
The stimulus which Cuvier’s immortal writings have continued to 
exercise in the progress of Paleeontology has procured for his suc- 
cessor in the celebrated school of Comparative Anatomy at Paris, 
the opportunity of resolving the problem and of testing the ac- 
curacy of his great predecessor’s powers of prevision in the present 
instance. ‘‘ Nous voyons bien,”’ says the author of the ‘Ostéographie,’ 
in his chapter on Lophiodon*, ‘“‘qu’on rapporte a plusieurs des 
espéces proposées un astragale, os qui, dans l’ordre des Ongulo- 
grades actuellement vivants, les partage assez nettement en deux 
sections, de ‘ Digités impairs’ et de ‘ Digités pairs,’ suivant qu'il n’est 
pas ou est en osselet+. Dans le Lophiodon d’Issel, le fragment 
d’astragale qui lui est attribué n’est pas en osselet et se rapproche 
beaucoup de celui des Palzeotheriums.’”’—‘“ Parmi les piéces sur les- 
quelles reposent les troisiéme et quatriéme Lophiodons du Dépot 
d’Argenton, nous avons eu grand soin de signaler un astragale et de 
faire observer qu'il n’est pas en osselet. II résulte de la, ce me 
semble, que le genre Lophiodon était, sous ce rapport comme sous 
celui du systéme dentaire, extrémement rapproché de celui des Palzeo- 
theriums, et que, comme lui, il était pourvu de trois doigts 4 chaque 
ied.” 
3 In a work of high merit, but the tone of which, towards the me- 
mory and discoveries of Cuvier, every lover of science must deplore, 
we look in vain for any acknowledgment of the source of the beauti- 
ful generalization of the relation of particular forms of the astragalus 
to the parity or imparity of the hinder digits, or any ascription of 
the credit due to a prevision which it had been the good fortune of 
the author of the ‘ Ostéographie’ to verify. 
What concerns, however, the palzeontologist and zoologist chiefly, 
is the satisfactory recognition of the genus Lophiodon, together with 
the Tapirotherium, the Paleotherium, Hippotherium, Acerotherium, 
Macrauchenia, Elasmotherium, and Coryphodon, as links fillmg up 
the now broken series of perissodactyle or odd-toed Ungulates, repre- 
sented by the existing genera Rhinoceros, Hyrax, Tapirus, and 
Equus. 
"The progress of palzeontological discovery, and especially the ad- 
ditions from our British eocene strata, have tended considerably to 
complete that other and parallel chain of Ungulata, a portion of which 
Cuvier designated as ‘les Pachydermes a doigt pairs,’ and which are 
* 4to, 1847, p. 114. 
+ It is by this term ‘ osselet’ that M. de Blainville vaguely expresses the cha- 
racters of the astragalus so neatly and intelligibly defined by Cuvier, as “la face 
tarsienne en forme de poulie divisée en deux gorges var une arréte saillante.” 
