^10 ' ON ZOOLOGICAL SYSTEMS, AND THE 



All these belong to the pachydermatous or warrior-order of the mammal 

 class, which may, perhaps, be regarded as the richest of all the divisions 

 of fossil animals. But there is no class or order without like examples : 

 and the caves of Gaylenreuth, on the frontiers of Bayreuth, as examined 

 by Esper, have furnished quite as extensive a variety as the quarries 

 around Paris. He has hence derived two entirely extinct species of bear, 

 one of the size of the horse ; several species of the dog ; one of the cat ; 

 and two of the weazel ; all of which are possibly extinct, though there is 

 a doubt respecting one or two of them. In these caves alone, indeed, ac- 

 cording to M. Esper, the enormous mass of animal earth, the prodigious 

 number of teeth, jaws, and other bones, and the heavy grouping of sta- 

 lactites, render the place a fit temple for the God of Death. Hundreds 

 Qf cartloads of bony remains might be removed, and numerous bags be 

 loaded with fossil teeth, almost without being missed. 



The fossil deer and elk tribe form also a very numerous collection. 

 Among these the celebrated elk of Ireland, dug out of a marl-pit near 

 Drogheda, with its antlers of nearly eleven feet from tip to tip,* figures 

 as chief. The finest fallow-deer, red-deer, roes and stags, belonging to 

 the fossil kingdom, have been found in Scania, Sommes, Etampes, Or- 

 leans, or scattered over Europe, in limestone, peat-bogs, or sand-pits. 

 M. Cuvier has described seven distinct species, all of which, with the ex- 

 ception of one, are extinct or unknown species. Of the fossil ox, buffalo, 

 and antelope genus, he has given four distinct species, all apparently un- 

 known. 



He has also collected fossil remains of the horse and hog genera, with- 

 out being able to ascertain to what species they belong : and various ani- 

 mals of the order glires or gnawers, as beavers, guinea-pigs, and rabbits, 

 and two decidedly unknown species of the sloth tribe, which he has dis- 

 tinguished by the names of Megalonix and Megatherium, the first as 

 large as an ox, earliest discovered in limestone caves in Virginia in 1796 ; 

 and the second of the size of the rhinoceros, hitherto found only in South 

 America. Specimens of the ox-sized have since been found in Buenos 

 Ayres, in Lima, and in Paraguay ; and of these three the first, a perfect 

 skeleton, was sent as a present to M. Cuvier by the Marquis Loretto in 

 1789. 



Relics of fossil seals and lamantins, though less perfect than most of 

 the preceding, enter also into this extraordinary collection. 



In the other classes M. Cuvier has hitherto made less progress ; though 

 his collection of fossil, and apparently unknown amphibials, especially of 

 the crocodile and tortoise tribes, is considerable and highly interesting ; 

 and should his life be spared for ten or twelve years longer, we may have 

 reason to expect these classes to be filled up as numerously as that of 

 mammals. 



Among the most extraordinary of the fossil amphibials he has enume- 



* See Sir Thomas Molyneux's account of this aninaal in Phil. Trans. 1726. 



This is the Cerviis Eurycerus of Dr. Hibbert : a name he has applied to it from Aldro- 

 yandus, who appears to have been acquainted with this species of fossil elk, and has referred 

 to it as pommou at that time in various soils in the British Isles. Specimens, indeed, arc 

 still often to be met with in this quarter: and Dr. Hibbert, in the essay now referred to, 

 quotes part of a letter from Dr. Millizan, of Edinburgh, in which he adverts to the skeletons 

 of three great elks that were lately dug up in Ireland, one of which measures eleven feet be- 

 tween the tips of the horns. And he adds, what would seem to show that this species had 

 not been many a^es extinct, that near them, in a three feet stratum of m.irl, were also found 

 the skeletons of three dogs ; and, at a little distance, several human skeletons. Edin. Jonrn. 

 «>f Science, No. V. p. J34. 1895. ^ 



