L 19 I 
I*. On the Osteology of the Hyopotamidae. By I)r. W. Kowalevski. 
Communicated by Professor Huxley, Sec. B.S. 
Received December 19, 1872, — Read February 6, 1873. 
Introduction. 
The paper which I lay before the Society is an attempt to treat with sufficient osteo- 
logical detail an extinct family of Ungulates which had an immense range of distri- 
bution and a great variety of forms in the two periods of the earth’s history which 
preceded our own. The fate this family has met with at the hands of palaeontologists 
is a somewhat sad one, presenting a warning example of the unscientific method that 
was paramount in the palaeontology of the Mammalia after the time of Cuvier. With 
the exception of England, where the study of fossil Mammalia was founded on a sound 
basis, and some glorious exceptions on the continent, we have very few good palaeonto- 
logical memoirs in which the osteology of extinct mammals has been treated with 
sufficient detail and discrimination ; and things have come to such a pass, that we 
know far better the osteology of South American, Australian, and Asiatic genera 
of fossil mammals than of those found in Europe. Nearly all fossil Mammalia 
which have been described in detail belong to genera that still exist on our globe, or 
whose differences from fossil forms are trifling. After the splendid osteological investi- 
gations .of Cuvier had revealed to science a glimpse of a new mammalian world of 
wonderful richness, his successors have been bent rather on multiplying the diversity of 
this extinct creation, than on diligently studying the organization of the fossil forms 
that successively turned up under the zeal of amateurs and collectors. 
From the year 1828, and even before, when Laizee, Pomel, Croiset, and others began to 
give short notices on the Mammalia of Auvergne, mammalian genera and species from this 
locality have been multiplied at a prodigious rate, every private collector giving his own 
generic and specific names, with no better description than stating the real or supposed 
number of teeth, and some phrases as to the general resemblances of the fossil in 
question. Others substituted in their short notices other names, while the scientific 
work of description did not proceed further than the mere counting of the number of 
teeth. This process has given rise to such an utter confusion in the palaeontology of 
the extinct Paridigitata, that even now (forty years after the date of the earliest 
notices) we are utterly ignorant of the true extent and organization of the Miocene 
mammalian fauna of Auvergne, for instance — though materials for a detailed study of 
the subject abound in all great public, and many private, collections, the fossils being 
very common. No palaeontologist, even of the highest standing, could boast of knowing, 
MDCCCLXXIII. E 
