ON THE BONES OP THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. 391 



Length of the two smaller bones 0,096 



Breadth at the centre 0,030 



Length of the two first phalanges of the centre 0,060 



Len-th of the two laterals 0,053 



Length of the second phalange s of the centre 0,033 



Length of the second laterals 0,026 



Length of the last or unguinals 0,026 



SECTION II. 



ON THE FOSSIL REMAINS OF Ttfi'V HIPFOPOTAMU3. 



There is but one species of living hippopotamus known at the present 

 day, as we have just seen in the preceding article: but I have dis- 

 covered two, and it may be four, of the fossil species. The first is so 

 much similar to the living species that 1 have not been able to dis- 

 tinguish them : the second is about the figure of a wild boar, but in 

 every other particular, as we shall soon have occasion to see, it must 

 be pronounced a copy in miniature of the great species. The third 

 may be said to be intermediate between the two others. Lastly, I find 

 traces of a fourth, almost as large as a Siamese pig. 



Our acquaintance with the smaller species is entirely owing to my 

 researches : and as for the larger, although its existence in the fossil 

 state might have been previously announced, it was not until the pub- 

 lication of my first edition, that it was proved beyond a doubt. 



In faot, the late M. Faujas de Saint Fond, an author whose works 

 upon this subject immediately preceded mine, states most distinctly, in 

 his Essay on (ieology (vol. 1, page 364), that he had seen nothing in 

 the Museums he had visited in his travels, or in the authors he had con- 

 sulted, from whence be might conclude that the hippopotamus had been 

 found in the fossil state along with the elephant, the rhinoceros, and 

 the other great quadrupeds of the warm climates. 



I have myself examined these same authors, and most certainly I 

 have not found in them the positive testimony required ; but at - 

 least I have had an opportunity of observing, that the most learned 

 men have frequently committed grave mistakes, by attempting to 

 apply the name hippopotamus to many fossils to which it was wholly 

 inapplicable. 



Thus I have already had occasion to remark, that all that is said by 

 Daubenton of the supposed fossil grinders of an hippopotamus, in his 

 Description of the King's Museum (Natural History, vol. xii, in 4to), 

 is in reality to be referred to the intermediate grinders of the great 

 mastodon of Ohio, or mammoth of the English and Americans : and 

 what he further states in the same place, concerning petrified teeth 

 bearing a relation to those of the hippopotamus, is referable to the 

 teeth of another species, confounded by former naturalists with the 

 species of Ohio, and which I have distinguished by the title of narrow- 

 toothed mastodon. 



But the same observation will not apply to the numbers mcii and 

 mciv, of the same passage. The first is a portion of a jaw, contain- 

 ing two grinders, the other is a solitary grinder. These are actually 

 belonging to an hippopotamus, as I sha;l shew further on. Tnev are, 



k k 2 



