Q it a drupeds . 5117 



Some Remarks on the Skeleton of the Head of the Urns Scoticus. 

 By R. Knox, M.D., F.R.S.E., Lecturer on Anatomy, and Cor- 

 responding Member of the Academie Imperiale de Medicine of 

 France. 



The characters by means of which the illustrious Cuvier esta- 

 blished the specific distinctions between the extinct or fossil organic 

 world and that now existing were mainly, if not wholly, anatomical, 

 and were confined almost wholly to the skeleton. So long as the 

 characters had a reference to animals of which no congeners now 

 lived the distinctions were easily made, and admitted of no dispute ; 

 but when an attempt was made by the immortal author of the ' Osse- 

 mens Fossiles ' to apply the method to species and genera analogous 

 to many now existing, the method, if it did not wholly break down, 

 even in his hands, became at least uncertain, and could not be trusted 

 implicitly. The genera Felis, Equus, Canis, and several others, as 

 the Elephas and Ursus, furnished grounds for disputing the universal 

 applicability of the method. Cuvier, it is true, might have objected 

 that, even in the now-existing living world, anatomical distinctions 

 are not required in the discrimination of species ; and that, in point 

 of fact, many animals exist of manifestly and notoriously distinct spe- 

 cies, in which the anatomical differences in the skeleton are scarcely 

 perceptible, or at least such as might readily be accounted for by 

 accident or individual variety. But this argument Cuvier did not 

 choose to avail himself of, for reasons I have explained elsewhere. 



Notwithstanding these objections, some of which are sufficiently 

 strong, I still lean to the opinion that, were our observations suffi- 

 ciently minute and practical, we should always find in different species 

 anatomical differences sufficiently well marked to characterize these 

 species, not so obvious, it is true, as those we derive from external 

 characters (the horse and ass, the zebra. and quagga, the wild and 

 domestic cat, the dog and the fox, present most ample proofs of this 

 fact), yet sufficiently well marked to support the great doctrines of 

 Cuvier ; and thus I still feel disposed to think that the fossil horse, 

 bear, and the Carnivora were animals of species wholly distinct from 

 those that now live. But, be this as it may, it is obvious that the 

 distinction and separation of species is an operation in which Nature, 

 when left to herself, never fails ; and it is now all but certain that one 

 method at least by which she perpetuates and preserves species is the 

 XV. L 



