446 
shades of difference so slight, as almost to lead to the opinion of the 
wolf and the dog being of the same species. 
Esper and Rosenmuller describe bones found at Gaylenreuth, which 
they refer to the wolf. A skull of this kind is in the cabinet of Darm- 
stadt, and is figured by Cuvier, Ann. du Mus. d’ Hist. Nat. Cap. liv. 
PI. 34. Whichever species these bones belong to, they are found to 
agree, in the state of preservation, and in the substance with which 
they are invested, with those of the bears, and of the hyenas. Similar 
bones have been found with the elephantine remains at Carnstadt and 
at Romagnano ; and at Kahldorf, where the head of the hyena already 
mentioned, described by Collini, was found. 
The quantity of remains of animals of the former world which has 
been imbedded in the quarries of plaster-stone in the neighbourhood 
of Paris, must be beyond conception. Considering that, in certain 
beds, there is not a block of gypsum but which encloses perhaps a 
bone, how many millions of these bones, as is justly observed by Cu- 
vier, must have been destroyed by the vast excavations which have 
been already made ? how many more are being perpetually lost through 
mere neglect ? and, even since they have been more in request, how 
many must escape observation, in consequence of their minuteness? 
To such observations the indefatigable Cuvier was led, by the dis- 
covery of a skeleton of a small size, in two pieces of gypsum. By a 
careful dissection, as it were, of these stones, he was enabled to make 
out the different parts of the skeleton so distinctly, as to ascertain that 
it was one of the animals of the family of Pedimanes of Dumeril, 
which are distinguished by having a separated toe to their hind foot, 
and a fold of the integument forming a pouch beneath the belly ; or, 
as it were, a false uterus. 
The animals of this description are disposed, in the last edition of 
Sy sterna Natures, in thirteen species, under the genus Didelphis. This 
disposal, according to M. Cuvier, is not correct. Independent of other 
objections, which will be presently noticed, it is to be remarked, that 
