400 ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF PACHYDERMATOUS QUADRUPEDS. 



From these data the fossil hippopotamus may he supposed to have 

 had a shorter neck than the living animal, but the other parts of the 

 spine must have differed but very slightly in their proportions. 



3. The Great Bones of the Anterior Extremity. 



The Shoulder Blade. — The portion in my possession (plate 36, figs. 1 

 and 2) differs palpably from that of the living animal, by an articulation 

 more rounded, not pointed in front, and by a coracoid tuberosity blunted 

 aiH more bent inwards. 



This fragment must have belonged to an animal from fourteen to 

 fifteen feet in height. 



The Humerus. — I have had a drawing made of the upper head of 

 this bone (plate 36, tigs. 3 and 4), which I saw in the Museum at 

 Florence. I brought hence about a third of the lower part, but con- 

 sisting of parts belonging to two individuals. It is easy to discern, 

 both in one and the other (plate 3G, figs. 5 and 6), that the pulley of 

 the articulation is narrower and thicker, and that the crest above the 

 external condyle rises higher and is more prominent than in the living 

 animal. To judge of it by the breadth between the, two condyles, the 

 largest of these two fragments must have proceeded from an animal 

 thirteen feet nine inches in height. 



The bones of the fore-arm (plate 36, figs. 7, 8, 9, and 10) form, as 

 in the living hippopotamus, a single piece, and present us with the 

 same details in their configuration ; but their proportions are widely 

 different. 



Their united bulk is much larger in proportion : in the living animal, 

 the greatest breadth of the two bones at the base is contained twice 

 in the length of the radius : in the fossil it is contained in it but little 

 more than once and a half. 



The boundary between the two bones is not marked in the fossil by 

 a deep furrow with sharp edges. This space is hollowed into a large 

 concavity, filled at the bottom, with the exception of the hole piercing 

 from side to side in its upper part, and which may be seen in the fossil 

 as in the living animal, but much higher in the former than in the 

 latter. Its distance from the sigmoid facette is, to the length of the 

 radius in the fossil, as 1 to 4| — in the living, as 1 to 3|. The part 

 containing the olecranon and the sigmoid facette, is larger, in relation 

 to the rest of the cubitus, in the fossil than in the living animal. 



The fossa separating the two parts of the sigmoid facette is much 

 broader and less deep in the fossil ; the anterior face of the radius is 

 more regularly cylindrical ; the lower surface of the two bones is there 

 broader in proportion to its antero-posterior diameter : the facette for 

 the second bone of the carpus is larger in proportion to the two others, 

 and particularly to the first. 



The fore-arm in our possession is 0,460 long, and 0,184 wide at the 

 base. Its length Avould indicate an animal thirteen feet six inches in 

 heigh •, its breadth would greatly increase this proportion, and it is 

 probable that its height was a medium between these two results, and 

 hat it exceeded fourteen feet. 



