28 
Dll. W. KOWALEVSKY ON THE 
Eocene becl, and were supposed to belong to Hyopotamus boviuus, under which deter- 
mination they were placed in the Museum. At first I thought that these bones might 
really have belonged to the Hyopotamus bovinus, though the British Museum possessed 
no teeth of this genus from Hordwell. The long bones from Hordwell were strikingly 
similar to the Hyopotamus bones from Hempstead and from Puy ; the calcaneus, astra- 
galus, and phalanges Avere so entirely similar to Hyopotamus bones from these two 
localities, that it seemed impossible to doubt their generic identity. What looked very 
convincing also was the shape of the last, or ungual, phalanges. These ungual phalanges 
are very peculiar in the Hyopotami from Hempstead and from Puy ; they resemble 
somewhat a large and thick human nail, and we know not a single living or fossil 
Ungulate having such peculiar ungual phalanges; however, even in this the animal 
from Hordwell entirely resembled the Hyopotamus. But the metacarpals and meta- 
tarsals of the Hordwell animal proved very different from any thing found at Hempstead 
or in Puy ; they were considerably larger, and their shape was altogether different ; the 
section was much more round, and the inferior or distal ends proportionately thicker. 
At first I could not find any plausible reason why the animal from Hordwell, being so 
similar to the Hyopotamus in all the long bones of the skeleton, should present this 
very striking difference in the shape of the metacarpals and metatarsals. But gradually, 
as I grew more familiar with all the peculiarities of these bones, and after having com- 
pared them with a large series of metacarpals and metatarsals of extinct and living 
Paridigitata, it became quite clear that the animal from Hordwell, although so similar 
in all its long bones with the Hyopotamus from Puy and Hempstead, differed widely 
from this genus in having only two metacarpals and metatarsals, and not four — being in 
fact didactyle, like the Anoplotherium. As we have never yet found at Hordwell a 
complete fore or hind foot in its natural connexion, I was very cautious in drawing my 
inferences from scattered and mostly broken bones ; but the study of the relat ions of 
the carpal and metacarpal, and especially tarsal and metatarsal bones, gave altogether 
the same result ; indeed there was no possible doubt that the animal from Hordwell 
could not have more than two complete digits to its fore and hind foot. Unfortunately 
I could not find any teeth belonging to the new animal whose almost entire skeleton was 
before me. The only authority who has noticed Hyopotamus teeth from a deposit in 
Hampshire is Professor P. Gervais. In his ‘ Paleontologie Frantjaise,’ while speaking 
of Hyopotamus (p. 191), he tells us of having met Hyopotamus teeth, similar to those 
described by Professor Owen, in the collection of Bowerbank ; “ they came from a fresh- 
water stratum in Hampshire.” As the bed in which the bones of the new didactyle 
animal were found at Hordwell has really an outcrop in the New Forest, I suspect that 
the teeth seen by M. Gervais really came from this bed. However, the absence of 
these teeth, though much to be regretted, is not an obstacle to a complete knowledge 
of the new genus. The classification of Paridigitata is based entirely on osteological 
characters ; and as nearly all the bones of the new animal from Hordwell are known, it 
is perfectly characterized, and, in my opinion, much better than many genera of which 
