410 OX THE FOSSIL BOXES OF PACHYDERMATOUS QUADRUPEDS. 



it to belong to the species of the hippopotamus alone. The other 

 animals which have a similar division, namely, the ruminants, the pig, 

 the rhinoceros, and the tapir, have the two pullies very unequal. The 

 giraffe has not even a cuboid. 



The length, b c, of this astragalus, the only one of its dimensions 

 that has remained quite perfect, is 0,040. The same dimension, taken 

 in the astragalus of the large living hippopotamus, is 0,77. 



I have moreover extricated a schaphoid bone from this block. It 

 measures 0,03 from front to rear ; 0,02 from right to left ; and it bears, 

 on its metatarsal surface, three articulated facettes, a large, a middling, 

 and a very small one, which proves that this small hippopotamus had, 

 like the large one, four toes, and the vestige of a fifth on its hind feet. 



The block has likewise yielded me a portion of a thigh (plate 34, 

 fig. 1), which has lost its head, the top of its grand trochanter, and 

 almost one third of its lower part ; but we plainly perceive in it the 

 deep cavity hollowed out on its posterior surface, between the head 

 and the great trochanter, the extreme projection of the roof of the 

 latter, and the position of the small trochanter at the base, and in the 

 lining of the root of the large one. 



As these characters, which I have displayed in my figure of the 

 femur of the living hippopotamus (plate 31, figs. 15 and 16) are also 

 to be found almost exactly the same in the wild boar, they do not 

 afford us such positive distinctions as the others ; but at the same time 

 there is nothing to contradict the results of our jirevious reasoning. 



The fragment of the pelvis, represented in profile, jflate 34, fig, 4, 

 and in front, fig. 5, is in the same predicament. The edges of its co- 

 tyloid cavity are broken all round, so that it cannot be measured ex- 

 actly : but it is easy to see that it must have corresponded with the 

 femur represented beside it (plate 34, fig. 1). The flatness of the os ilium, 

 on its anterior surface, is also very similar to that displayed by the same 

 part of the living hippopotamus. (See its osteology, plate 31, fig. 14). 



I have not procured any of the other bones of this small hippopo- 

 tamus ; but all zoologists will agree that there are quite sufficient to 

 characterise it. Neither is there a necessity for proving that it is full 

 grown, and that the smallness of its size is not owing to its age : the 

 state of its dentition and ossification is a sufficient demonstration. 



Here, then, we have another species, evidently distinct from all 

 those known on the surface of the globe. But it may be urged against 

 this as against many others, that perhaps I am constructing an edifice 

 whose parts nature never intended should approximate : that it may 

 be that I am forming an imaginary animal from the bones of several 

 animals contained in these blocks ; but I am always ready with my 

 answer. I will not stop to show r the natural affinity of these divers 

 bones, nor to prove that, taken in the aggregate, they agree most pre- 

 cisely with the laws that preside over the organization of animals : no ; 

 I take my stand on this unassailable ground, namely, that each bone, 

 taken separately, differs from those of all known animals ; that it is not 

 on their combination that I establish my characters, and that if, by 

 chance, it were to be discovered that I had actually united different 

 species, this would in itself go to increase the number of fossil species, 

 which, as far as our knowledge goes, do not exist at present. 



