8 PACHYDERMATA. 



being the greatest number which he had observed. 1 These obser- 

 vations were of especial value in furnishing a standard of com- 

 parison for the teeth of the fossil species ; and by establishing the 

 existence of milk incisors, they proved that part at least of the 

 dental system of the Elephant agreed with that of the ordinary 

 Pachydermata. But Corse was at fault in the conjecture that 

 eight molar teeth are successively developed in an antero-posterior 

 series in this animal ; for if this were the case, the Elephant would 

 form an exception to a general law in the Pachydermata and 

 allied orders, among which the normal number of milk molars does 

 not exceed four, that of the true molars being invariably three. 



Notwithstanding this objection, Corse's numerical statement was 

 adopted by Cuvier and by all other authors prior to 1844, when 

 it was, for the first time, challenged by M. de Blainville in the 

 part of his ' Osteographie' devoted to the Elephants. Bronn, 2 in his 

 ' Lethcea,' gives eight molars on each side of both jaws to the 

 genus Elephas ; and Dr. Grant, 3 in his memoir upon the Pro- 

 boscidea, puts forward different dental formulae in the molars, as 

 points of generic distinction between Elephant and Mastodon, 

 attributing eight molars in each side to the former, and only six to 

 the latter. 



Cuvier, except in what regards his hypothetical explanation of 

 the formation of the dental tissues, has described with admirable 

 clearness, and in great detail, the structure and mode of growth of 

 the teeth in the Elephant. But he had assuredly arrived at no 

 accurate idea of the true division of the molar series into milk and 

 permanent grinders. He makes no attempt to show where the 

 deciduous series terminates and the true molars begin, although so 

 particular upon this point in his descriptions of the dental system 

 in the ordinary Pachydermata and Ruminantia. In fact, the 

 term ' dent de lait ' is but rarely applied in his Elephant descrip- 

 tions ; and in these instances, it has evidently reference more 

 to the immature age of the animal, than in the ordinary sense of a 

 deciduous tooth which is expelled by a vertical successor. Having 



1 Corse, loc. cit. p.- 224. 2 Bronn, Letheea Geognostiea, 1838, p. 1240. 



3 Grant, Geolog. Proceedings, 1842, vol. iii. p. 771. 



