INTRODUCTION. V 



Many of these originals were formerly the property of the East India 

 Company, but are now in the British Museum. In the same Museum 

 are the huge, uncouth fossil Edentates from the Pampas of South 

 America, — the Megatherium, Scelidotherium, and Glyptodon, — which, 

 like the Marsupial Diprotodon and Nototherium, — now copied for the 

 first time, — furnished Owen the materials for some of his most 

 masterly Monographs. The Palseotherium, Anoplotherium, Anthra- 

 cotherium, and other forms from the Gypsum beds of Montmartre, 

 Paris, are of peculiar interest as being the identical specimens from 

 which the great Cuvier first told Science of animals which once lived and 

 are now extinct. The Miocene Tertiary of Central France, and of the 

 still more northerly Rhine Valley, has yielded many specimens of 

 Rhinoceros, Tapir, Hippopotamus, &c, — genera now confined within 

 the tropics. Finally the Colossal Mammoth and Mastodon have their 

 anatomy well represented by a large series of bones from all parts of 

 their skeleton from many localities in Asia, Europe and America. 

 The Mammals are represented by over 100 species, some of them the 

 largest fossils which have ever been cast. 



The class of Birds, 



is illustrated by portions of some gigantic individuals from New Zealand 

 and Madagascar, while the " Omithichnites" — copied from the finest 

 slabs in the splendid series collected by the late Dr. Hitchcock for 

 the Museum of Amherst College, — are most efl'ective transcripts of 

 the strange originals. 



Among Reptiles, 



the Lias of Lyme Regis, England, and of Boll, Wirtembcrg, and the 

 Oolite of Solenhofen, Bavaria, have furnished many celebrated forms 

 among the Marine Saurians, Crocodileans, and Pterosaurians, while the 

 Great Tortoise — over 8 feet long ! — smaller Turtles from the " Bad 

 Lands" of Nebraska, and the skulls and tracks of the Cheirotherium 

 or Labyrinthodon — the great Trias Batrachian of England and Saxony 

 — complete this class. 



The series of Fishes, 



from the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland, the Lithographic Limestone of 

 Solenhofen, the Chalk of England and the Tertiary of Monte Bolca and 

 of (Eningen, contains many finely preserved and interesting specimens. 



Among the Articulates, 



there are quite a variety of Crabs and Lobsters of Mesozoic and Ter- 

 tiary age which constitute a valuable complement to our American 

 crustacean forms. They are accompanied by a fine suite of Trilobites, 

 containing over 80 specimens, which are in part from Bohemia. Sweden. 



