of the Dog, the Wolf, and the Fox. 251 



lozenge-shaped, between the edges or cutting surfaces. From 

 this arrangement it follows, that the molares of the wolf are less 

 fitted for cutting the substances submitted to mastication than 

 those of the fox ; and, accordingly, the former of these devours 

 more gluttonously than the latter, which is probably owing to 

 its not having the same facilities for chewing. 



The superior and inferior false grinders of the fox are, on the 

 contrary, so arranged as to be received the one into the inter- 

 vals of the other, so that scarcely any intermediate space remains 

 when the jaws are applied close to each other. In dogs, the ge- 

 neral arrangement of the molares is not entirely that which ex- 

 ists in the wolf, although they approximate much nearer to it 

 than that which is observed in the fox. In fact, in them the in- 

 terval which exists between the false molares has not the same 

 regularity as exists in the wolf. This occurs chiefly because the 

 false molares of dogs approach much nearer to the perpendicular 

 than in the wolf : the grinders of this animal being somewhat 

 oblique from before backwards, the interdental space must be 

 smaller. The preceding characters become more conspicuous 

 in proceeding from the mastiff to the more intelligent races of 

 dogs ; so that, from the mastiff to the spaniel, the false molares 

 approximate more and more to the vertical position (the alveolar 

 processes being placed horizontally), and the interdental space 

 becomes more and more inconsiderable. The carnivorous teeth 

 of the wolf, both superior and inferior, appear, other propor- 

 tions being the same, more extended in their length from before 

 backwards than in the dog. Thus the diameter of these teeth, in 

 a mastiff of the largest dimensions, is from 24 to 26 millimetres, 

 and in the wolf from 27 to 29 millimetres.* We cannot affirm 

 that the same difference will be observable in the fox, in which 

 the carnivorous teeth exhibit furrows and depressions more con- 

 spicuous than in the dog and the wolf, which is owing to that 

 peculiarity which the teeth of the fox exhibit, of fitting in more 

 deeply and accurately. Thus the triturating surface of the tu- 



* We have already made this remark in our " Researches upon the Fossil 

 Bones of the Caverns of Lunel-Vieil," p. 169, in the Memoirs of the Mu- 

 seum d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris. 



