1838.] On the genus Hexaprotodon. 1043 



On the right side the anterior cheek tooth is broken in the socket, 

 and the second tooth in the row presents two distinct crowns situated 

 close together, but in the left side in this specimen as well as in a frag- 

 ment of what is probably a corresponding species in the Asiatic Society, 

 the second cheek tooth presents a single large compressed crown ; the 

 three next teeth are placed close together, and are perfectly distinct from 

 each other, but from the manner in which dentition appears to take place 

 in these animals two points of the same tooth may be more or less dis- 

 tant from each other, so that a corresponding tooth in different individuals 

 may occasionally appear double or single according to circumstances, 

 but allowing the utmost latitude to variations of this kind, still we must 

 regard the specimen in question from its breadth to characterise a dis- 

 tinct species ; more especially as we find the following fragment in the 

 Asiatic Society's museum to corroborate all the essential peculiarities of 

 this species. 



Fig. 6 b. The fragment of a gigantic individual*, which presents 

 a depth of six inches at the chin, with a breadth of more than 

 twelve inches, and corresponds with Dr. MacLoed's specimen 

 fig. 6, so forcibly as not to be mistaken in the most minute 

 particular as having belonged to a larger individual of the same 

 species ; the second and third cheek teeth in this are still remaining 

 on the right side as well as the sockets and alveolus of the incisors and 

 canines. The importance of this specimen (of which I have given two 

 figures 6 b. and 6 c. the latter being the under side), consists in its 

 suggesting that a difference in the same species gives rise in these, 

 as in other animals, to no difference in form, and consequently 

 that a difference of form in the fragments of several species is to be 

 regarded as a specific distinction. Before I became acquainted with this 

 fact, and compared the specimens to which I am indebted for a know- 

 ledge of it, I was disposed to think the following specimen probably 

 belonged to a young Hex. Sivalensis. 



Fig. 7 is the corresponding portion of the lower jaw of a small 

 specimen only seven and a half inches across the muzzle, and three and 

 a half inches in depth. The narrowest part of the jaw behind the 



* On a shelf in the north-western corner of the museum, along with the cer- 

 vical vertebrae, teeth, and other fragments of elephants and mastodons and nu- 

 merous broken tusks of hippopotami without labels, or any indications of the 

 place in which they were found, or who the donors were, so that we are left to 

 infer that they came from the Siwali/c beds, though in the same side of the 

 apartment there are collections from Ava also without labels ; these have 

 been destroyed by insects, which seem to have recently taken advantage of the 

 neglected state of this department of our museum. 

 6 Q 



