COEYPHODOK 
203 
Gervais (Nouv. Archives du Museum, vi, 1870, p. 150, plate 6, fig. 4), who 
notices the remarkable exposure of the middle brain, or corpora quadrigemina. 
Among Mammalia of later ages, some of the extinct South American Edentata 
present the greatest resemblances, although slight ones. Among these may 
be noticed the small and transverse cerebellum, and especially the lateral 
expansion of the region anterior to it. To what portion of the brain this 
expansion belongs, is not stated, but it is not unlike the lateral mass in 
Corgpliodon, as e. g. in the Eidatus seguinii,'^ Gervais. There is, however, 
nothing exposed on the supeiior surface which appears to be the middle 
brain; hence the difference from the brain of the Amhlgpoda is very con¬ 
siderable. 
Restoration. —The general appearance of the Coryphodons, as determined 
by the skeleton, probably resembled the Bears more than any living ani¬ 
mals, with the important exception that in their feet they were much like 
the Elephant. To the general proportions of the Bears must be added a 
tail of medium length. Whether they were covered witli hair or not is, 
of course, uncertain: of their nearest living allies, the Elephants, some were 
hairy, and others naked. The top of the head was doubtless naked poste¬ 
riorly, and in old animals may have been only covered' by a thin epidermis, 
as in the Crocodiles, thus presenting a rough, impenetrable front to antago¬ 
nists. 
The movements of the Coryphodons, doubtless, resembled those of the 
Elephant in its shuffling and ambling gait, and may have been even more 
awkward, from the inflexibility of the ankle. But, in compensation for the 
probable lack of speed, these animals were most formidably armed with 
tusks. These weapons, particularly those of the upper jaw, are more robust 
than those of the Carnivora, and generally more elongate, and attrition pre¬ 
served rather than diminished their acuteness. The size of the species 
varied from that of a Tapir to that of an Ox. 
There is no evidence that these animals possessed a proboscis, as was 
probably the case with some of the Dinocerata. 
We must suppose that the Coryphodons were vegetable feeders, but not 
* Figured iu the important memoir of Gervais’s, already quoted, Nouv. Arch du 
Mus., 1869, V, p. 42. 
