153 



ON SOME TEETH OF THE ANCHITHERIUM, RECENTLY 

 DISCOYERED IN THE ISLE OE WIGHT. 



Extract of a Lettee from Professor Paul Gervais, of Montprllier, 

 TO Dr. T. L. Phipson^, of Paris. 



" . . . .1 have just communicated to our Academy an observation 

 which may, perhaps, interest the readers of the Geologist, as it 

 concerns a fossil found in England. 



" M. Seamann, of Paris, has sent me five teeth of an animal belonging 

 to the tribe of Pachydermata, and which were found in the Bembridge 

 limestone, at Headon Hill, in the Isle of Wight. This bed also contains 

 remains of Palaeotheria, Anoplotheria, &c., that is to say, the animals 

 belonging to the fauna of the Platieres (Paris tertiary), which, in my 

 work, ^' I have named the proicene fauna. The accompanying figures 



will give you an idea of the teeth. Nos. 1 and 2 are molars from the 

 back part of the upper jaw. No. 5 is an incisor tooth. They are all 

 represented of the natural size. The animal to which they belong 

 appears to pertain to the order I have called Jumentes, in which we have, 

 also, the horse, the rhinoceros, the palaeotherium, and the lophiodon. 

 In my estimation, these teeth belong to a species of Anchitherium, and, 

 most probably, to the Anchitherium Radegondense (See Gervais ZooL 

 et Pal. pi. XXX.), which I discovered in a bed of lignite at Ste. 

 Eadegonde (Yaucluse), in the south of Erance. This district is, as 

 yet, the only one which has revealed to us with certitude remains of 

 the species in question. Neither the Flatieres of Paris, nor any other 

 contemporary strata, have ever given us the slightest indications of it. 

 It will, therefore, be interesting for you to make known the existence 

 of this fossil in the Isle of Wight." 



* Zoologise et Paleontologie Fran$aises. 



P 



