464 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
ON THE RUMINANT QUADRUPEDS AND THE ABORIGINAL 
CATTLE OE BRITAIN. 
By Professor Owen, F.R.S. 
ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
The speaker introduced the subject of the Ruminant order 
of quadrupeds, and the source of our domesticated species, by 
some general remarks upon the classification of the class 
Mammalia , and on the characters of the great natural group 
defined by Ray and Linnaeus as the JJngulata , or hoofed 
mammalia. 
These are divisible into two natural and parallel orders, 
having respectively the Anoplotherium and Palceotherium as 
their types ; which genera, as far as geological researches 
have yet extended, were the first, or amongst the earliest, 
representatives of the JJngulata on this planet. 
The brilliant researches of Baron Cuvier, the founder of 
paleontological science and the reconstructor of those 
primaeval hoofed animals, from fragmentary fossil remains in 
the gypsum quarries at Montmartre, were alluded to. 
Diagrams of the entire skeletons of the Anoplotherium and 
Palaeotherium were referred to, in illustration of their dental 
and osteological peculiarities. 
The Anoplotherium , with the typical dentition of 
3—3 1—1 4—4 3—3 
incisors , canines , premolars , , molars = 44 , 
3—3 1—1 4—4 3—3 
had all its teeth of the same length, and in a continuous un- 
broken series : this character is peculiar to Man in the exist- 
ing creation. The Ualaotherium , with the same dental for- 
mula as the Anoplotherium , had the canines longer than the 
other teeth, and developed into sharp-pointed weapons ; 
necessitating a break in the dental series to receive their 
summits in closing the mouth. 
The Anoplotherium had 19 vertebrae between the neck and 
sacrum, viz. 13 dorsal and 6 lumbar. The Palaeotherium had 
16 dorsal and 7 lumbar vertebrae. 
The Anoplotherium had a femur with two trochanters, and 
the fore part of the ankle-bone, called “ astragalus,” divided 
into two equal facets. Its hoofs formed a symmetrical pair 
on each foot. Cuvier has very justly inferred that its stomach 
must have been complex, and probably, in some respects, 
