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nected with these, in habits as well as in external appearance, the moschus, antilope, camelus-the musk, antelope, camel, and cameleopard, or giraffe. They are ordinally distinguished by being without upper fore-teeth, but having six or eight in the lower jaw, remote from the grinders. They have all four stomachs, are hoofed, and have the hoof divided in the middle; and, except the camel, have two false hoofs, which, in walking do not touch the ground. Such as have horns have no tusks, and such as have tusks have no horns: they ruminate or chew the cud; and from the torpid action of their multifid digestive canal, are apt to have balls form in different parts of it, owing to the frequent concretion of their food, occasionally intermixed, but more usually covered with a quantity of hair, which they lick from their bodies. Some of these balls are of a whitish hue, and will bear a fine polish, and are known by the name of bezoards. These are chiefly the production of the antelope kind; and were formerly in very high estimation as amulets and febrifuges.

The SIXTH ORDER of mammals embraces the BELLUE OF WARRIOR KINDS, possessing both upper and lower fore-teeth, and hoofed feet. The order consists of only four genera; the equus, or horse, mule, and ass tribes; the hippopotamus or river-horse; the tapir, which in appearance and habits makes an approach to the river-horse, but is smaller in size; and the numerous families of the sus or swine kind.

The LAST ORDER under the mammalian class consists of the CETE or WHALE KINDS. and embraces the monodon, sea-unicorn or narwahl; balæna, common whaie; physeter, cachalot, or spermaceti whale; and delphinus or dolphin, including, as two of its species, the phocoena or porpoise, the orca or grampus, and the dugong.

There is some force in introducing these sea-monsters into the same class with quadrupeds; but they are still continued here by M. Cuvier. They have a general concurrence of structure in the heart, lungs, backbone, and organ for suckling; but their teeth have little resemblance; and they have neither nostrils, feet, nor hair; instead of nostrils, possessing a spiracle or blowing-hole on the fore and upper part of the head; and instead of feet, fins; in which, as well as in their general habits, manners, and residence in the waters, they have a close resemblance to fishes. These are chiefly inhabitants of the polar seas, and several of the larger species afford materials that are highly valuable as articles of commerce or manufactures. All of them produce a considerable quantity of blubber or the basis of the coarser animal oils; the common whale sometimes to as large a quantity as 6 or 8,000lbs weight from the horny lamine of whose upper jaw, as well as from that of the balaæna Physalus or fin-fish, we obtain also extensive layers of whalebone; while the cachalot supplies us with spermaceti from its head, and with ambergris from some of its digestive organs; a substance, however, only to be procured from such organs when the animal is in a state of sickness. The most warlike of the order is the grampus, which will often engage with a cachalot or common whale of double its size, and continue the contest till it has destroyed it.

To this order also belongs the dugong or sea-cow of Sumatra, which has of late excited so much attention among naturalists. It was at one time supposed to be a hippopotamus or river-horse, but Sir Thomas Raffles has of late sufficiently proved it to be a cetaceous mammal. It is usually taken on the Malacca coast by spearing; its length is often from eight to nine feet. Its front extremities are two finny paddles; its only hind extremity is its tail, which is a very powerful instrument. It is never found on land or in fresh water, but generally in the shallows and inlets of the sea; the breasts of the adult females are of a large size, and especially during the time of suckling. Its food seems to consist entirely of fuci and submarine algæ, which it finds and browses upon at the bottom of the shallow inlets of the sea, where it chiefly inhabits. Its flesh resembles that of young beef, and is very delicate and juicy.

In M. Cuvier's arrangement the class of mammals is entirely recast,

Phil. Trans. 1820, p. 174,

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and divided into three orders, or principal sections, as distinguished by claws I or nails, by hoofs, or by fin-like feet; while the whole of these orders are farther subdivided into eleven distinct families, of which the first six belong to the first order; the next three to the second; and the last two to the third. The six families belonging to the first order, the nail or claw-footed, are these:

I. Bimanum: two-handed. Thumbs separate on the superior extremities only. Designed to include man alone.

II. Quadrumana: four-handed. Thumbs or great toes separate on each of the four feet. Monkies and maucaucoes.

III. Sarcophaga: flesh-feeders. No separate thumbs or great toes on the anterior extremities. Bats, flying lemurs, hedgehogs, shrews, moles, bears, weasels, civets, cats, including the lion and tiger-tribes; dogs, including the fox and wolf-tribes, and the opossums.

IV. Rodentia: gnawers.

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squirrels, rats of all kinds.

Want the canine teeth only. Cavies, beavers,

V. Edentata: edentulate. Want both the incisive and canine teeth. Anteaters, pangolins, and armadilloes.

VI. Tardigrada: slow-footed. Want only the incisive teeth. Sloth tribes. The three families belonging to the second or hoof-footed order, are the following:

VII. Pachydermata: thick-skinned. More than two toes; more than two hoofs. Elephants, tapirs, hogs, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and hyrax or damon.

VIII. Ruminantia: ruminants. Two toes; two hoofs. Camels, musks, deer, giraffes, goats, sheep, oxen.

IX. Solipeda; single-hoofed. One toe, one hoof. Horse alone, including the ass-tribe.

The two families belonging to the third, or fin-footed order, are the following:

X. Amphibia: amphibials. Four feet. Seals and morses. This familyname should be changed, since the same term is also employed by M. Cuvier, after other naturalists, as the name of a distinct class of other animals. XI. Cetacea: cetaceous. Feet fin-like. Manates or lamantins, dolphins, cachalots, whales, and narwahls.

We have thus run rapidly over a map of the different classes and kinds of animals as they are found extant in our own day. But those traced in a living state in our own day are by no means the whole that have existed formerly. In the lecture on Geology, in the preceding series,* we had occasion to observe that the various formations of rock, and especially the transition formations, open to us very numerous examples of whole families now no longer in existence; many of which have probably ceased to exist for several thousands of years; some of which, indeed, are so far removed from the races of the present day, as to require the invention of new genera, if not of new orders in a zoological arrangement for their reception.

Stukeley, Lister, and other paleologists and naturalists of the last century, paid no small attention to this subject, and dragged forth the unrecognised relics of various animals from their fossil abodes: but it has since been pursued with extraordinary spirit and activity by the concurrent labours of Karg, Schlottheim, Fischer, Espen, Collini, Blumenbach, Humboldt, Werner, Buckland, and, above all others, Cuvier; insomuch that the ascertained lost kinds bid fair in process of time to be almost as numerous as those that are living. The last physiologist is well known to have formed a most valuable and extensive museum for the reception and arrangement of fossil animal remains; and so rich and varied is his possession, that he has commenced and made a considerable progress in a classification for systematically distinguishing them. The alluvial soil of our own country has furnished him with numerous examples; the shell-marl and peat-bogs of Ireland, with one or two of still more striking character, and particularly with specimens, more or less per

Series 1. Lecture vi.
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fect, of its enormous elk, one of the most celebrated of all the fossil rumina ting animals. The Mediterranean coast, Russia, and both Americas have amply contributed to the collection. But it is to the limestone quarries of Eningen and Geylenreuth, and the alternating quarries of Paris, that it is chiefly indebted for its very interesting supply of the animal remains of a former world.

We have not time to travel even over an outline of this wonderful repository. Those who have no opportunity of examining it on the spot, may be abundantly gratified by a perusal of M. Cuvier's valuable and extensive work on the fossil remains of quadrupeds: which, though chiefly devoted to this particular class, is nevertheless rich in its history of extinct kinds and species of birds, amphibials, and fishes. We can only glance at a few of the more striking of the whole collection.

These are to be found chiefly in the class of mammals, and especially among the largest kinds. The gypsum-formation of Paris, supposed to be a fresh water deposite, has furnished M. Cuvier with two entirely original genera, and each genus with several species, the whole of which appear to be utterly extinct.

To these he has given the name of palæotherium and anoplotherium, or OLDEN BEAST, in allusion to its existence in the olden times; and DEFENCELESS BEAST, in allusion to the want of canine teeth in the genus it designates. Both genera belong to the Linnæan order of BELLUÆ or WARRIOR-BEASTS, and the Cuverian order of PACHYDERMATA, or thick-skinned.

The station of the first is allotted in this order after the tapir, and before the rhinoceros and the horse, which gives us the best idea of its general character. It is generically distinguished by having forty-four teeth; in each jaw six fore-teeth, two incisors, fourteen molars: snout extended, flexible; fore and hind feet quadrifid.

The gypsum quarries alone have furnished five distinct species of this very singular animal, in a more or less perfect state of its skeleton. 1. Palæotherium magnum, of the size of the horse. 2. P. medium; and, 3. P. crassum, each of the size of a hog. 4. P. curtum, with decurtate, patulous feet. 5. P. minus, of the size of a sheep. Besides which, five other species have been discovered in other parts of France, imbedded in fresh-water limestone, or in alluvial soil; one of them, P. giganteum, as large as the rhinoceros; and another, P. tapiroides, of the size of an ox.

The second species, or anoPLotherium, is somewhat smaller, and has its station assigned between the rhinoceros or the horse on the one hand, and the hippopotamus, hog, and camel on the other. It has forty-four teeth in a continuous series; being in each jaw six fore-teeth; two incisors, not longer than the fore-teeth; fourteen molars; fore and hind feet bifid, with distinct metacarpal and metatarsal bones; and accessary digits in a few. This genus also offers four species, varying from the size of the horse or ass to that of the leopard or elegant gazelle.

There is also another genus of entirely extinct quadrupeds, belonging to the same order, and of still larger magnitude, which M. Cuvier has been able to constitute from remains found in different parts of the world, to which he has given the name of MASTODON. It makes a near approach to the elephant, and in one or two of its species vies with it in size. The ascertained species are five; the largest of which, called the great mastodon, has been found in considerable abundance near the river Ohio; and specimens of whose skeletons have been brought to our own country, and exhibited under the name of MAMMOTH, which, however, is an error; as mammoth is a Russian term, applied to a fossil species of genuine elephant, which we shall notice presently. But the mastodon has in America been confounded with the mammoth. Both have been dug up in the alluvial soil of Siberia. Of the other species, two have been discovered by M. Humboldt in America alone; one both in America and at Simorre in Europe; and one both in Saxony and Monta*See also Mr. Kerr's translation of M. Cuvier's Essay on the Theory of the Earth, with Professor Jame son's Notes. 8vo.-Edin.

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busard. They are all of less magnitude than the great mastodon; and, from the character of the teeth, there is no doubt that all the species were grazing animals.

The fossil elephant, to which I have just referred, the proper mammoth of natural history, makes a nearer approach to the Asiatic than to the African living species; but it nevertheless differs so much from both, as to leave no question of its being an entirely extinct animal. Various relics of it, as bones and teeth, have been found scattered over almost every part of Europe, as well as in Asia and both Americas; occasionally in our own island, in the Isle of Sheppey, and in Ireland. But they are more common, and in a far more perfect state, in Sweden, Norway, Poland, and especially in Asiatic Russia; and M. Cuvier inclines to a belief that the bones of Archbishop Pontoppidan's giants of the north are nothing more than remains of this animal. The most perfect specimen of this kind that has ever been met with, was discovered, in the year 1799, by a Tungusian fisherman. It appeared at this time like a shapeless mass, projecting from an ice-bank near the mouth of a river in the north of Siberia. Year after year a larger and a larger portion of the animal was rendered visible by the melting of the ice in which it was imbedded; but it was not till five years after the first detection that its enormous carcass became entirely disengaged, and fell down from an icecrag upon a sand-bank, on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. The greater part of its flesh was soon afterward devoured by the white bear, or cut away by the Juhuts of the neighbourhood, as food for their dogs; yet when, in 1806, Mr. Adams examined it on the spot, and carefully collected all its remaining parts, more than thirty pounds weight of its hair and bristles were gathered from the wet sand-bank into which they had been trampled; and the mass of extremely thick and heavy skin, which was still left, demanded the utmost exertions of ten men for its removal.

The other extinct animals of the same class and order, collected or described by M. Cuvier, are a fossil rhinoceros, sufficiently distinguished from the only two species at present known; two unknown species of the hippopotamus; and two of the tapir.

Of the fossil rhinoceros, the earliest specimens noticed were those described by Grew, and consist of bones dug out of alluvial soil near Canterbury. Since which period, other relics have been traced in various parts of Germany, France, and Italy; while, in Siberia, an entire animal has been discovered, with its flesh and skin little injured. Of the two developed species of fossil hippopotamus, there is a doubt whether the largest, found in the alluvial soil of France and Italy, may not belong to an extant species; but the other, which is not larger than a hog, is strongly characterized, and widely different from either of the two living species of the present day. The two discovered species of fossil tapir evince a like difference of size, the one being small, the other gigantic; while both are found in different parties of France, Germany, and Italy.

All these belong to the pachydermatous or warrior-order of the mammal class, which may, perhaps, be regarded as the richest of all the divisions of fossil animals. But there is no class or order without like examples: and the caves of Gaylenreuth, on the frontiers of Bayreuth, as examined by Esper, have furnished quite as extensive a variety as the quarries around Paris. He has hence derived two entirely extinct species of bear, one of the size of the horse; several species of the dog; one of the cat; and two of the weasel. all of which are possibly extinct, though there is a doubt respecting one or two of them. In these caves alone, indeed, according to M. Esper, the enormous mass of animal earth, the prodigious number of teeth, jaws, and other bones, and the heavy grouping of the stalactites, render the place a fit temple for the God of Death. Hundreds of cart-loads of bony remains might be removed, and numerous bags be loaded with fossil teeth, almost without being missed.

The fossil deer and elk tribe form also a very numerous collection. Among these the celebrated elk of Ireland, dug out of a marl-pit near Drog

heda, with its antlers of nearly eleven feet from tip to tip, figures as chief. The finest fallow-deer, red-deer, roes, and stags, belonging to the fossil king. dom, have been found in Scania, Sommes, Etampes, Orleans, or scattered over Europe, in limestone, peat-bogs, or sand pits. M. Cuvier has described seven distinct species, all of which, with the exception of one, are extinct or unknown species. Of the fossil ox, buffalo, and antelope genus, he has given four distinct species, all apparently unknown.

He has also collected fossil remains of the horse and hog genera, without being able to ascertain to what species they belong: and various animals of the order glires or gnawers, as beavers, guinea-pigs, and rabbits, and two decidedly unknown species of the sloth tribe, which he has distinguished by the names of Megalonix and Megatherium, the first as large as an ox, earliest discovered in limestone caves in Virginia in 1796; and the second of the size of the rhinoceros, hitherto found only in South America. Specimens of the ox-sized have since been found in Buenos Ayres, in Lima, and in Paraguay; and of these three the first, a perfect skeleton, was sent as a present to M. Cuvier by the Marquis Loretto in 1789.

Relics of fossil seals and lamantins, though less perfect than most of the preceding, enter also into this extraordinary collection.

In the other classes M. Cuvier has hitherto made less progress; though his collection of fossil, and apparently unknown amphibials, especially of the crocodile and tortoise tribes, is considerable, and highly interesting, and should his life be spared for ten or twelve years longer, we may have reason to expect these classes to be filled up as numerously as that of mammals.

Among the most extraordinary of the fossil amphibials he has enumerated, is the gigantic monster first discovered as early as the year 1766, in the limestone quarries at Maestricht, and which was at that time regarded by some naturalists as a whale, by others as a crocodile, and by a third set as an enormous unknown fish. M. Cuvier has sufficiently ascertained that it must have formed an intermediate genus between those animals of the lizard tribe which possess a long and forked tongue, and those with a short tongue and a palate armed with teeth; and it is hence generally regarded in the present day as a MONITOR, making an approach towards the crocodile. The length of the skeleton seems to have been about twenty-four feet: the head is the sixth part of the whole length of the animal, which is nearly the proportion it bears in the crocodile. The tail must have been very strong, and its width at the extremity have rendered it a most powerful oar, capable indeed of opposing any violence of the waters; and it is hence chiefly that M. Cuvier regards it as having been an inhabitant of the ocean: though we are hereby put into possession of a kind or species far supassing in size and power any of those which it most nearly resembles, and at least rivalling the magnitude of the crocodile.t

The circumstances under which most of the preceding large and fossil animals have been found, and especially those traced in Siberia, afford sufficient proof that the catastrophe which arrested them must have overtaken them suddenly while in their native regions; and that they could not have been brought into their present situations from a remote distance. And we have

* See Sir Thomas Molyneux's account of this animal in Phil. Trans. 1726.

This is the cervus Eurycerus of Dr. Hibbert: a name he has applied to it from Aldrovandus, who appears to have been acquainted with this species of fossil elk, and has referred to it as common at that time in varions soils in the British isles. Specimens, indeed, are still often to be met with in this quarter: and Dr. Hibbert, in the essay now referred to, quotes part of a letter from Dr. Milligan, of Edinburgh, in which he adverts to the skeletons of three great elks that were lately dug up in Ireland, one of which measures eleven feet between the tips of the horns. And he adds, what would seem to show that this species had not been many ages extinct, that near them, in a three feet stratum of marl, were also found the skeletons of three dogs; and, at a little distance, several human skeletons. Edin. Journ. of Science, No. V. p. 134, 1825.

The fossil animals of this class have been since considerably enlarged by other discoveries; among the most curious of which, perhaps, are the Plesiosaurus of the late Mr. Conybeare, and the Megalosaurus of Professor Buckland. The remains of the last are the most imperfect; though from a large portion of the lower jaw dug up from the soil at Stonesfield, near Oxford, and a thigh-bone found at Cackfield, in Sussex, Mr. Buckland has been able to ascertain its mode of dentition, as also to estimate that its face must have terminated in a flat, straight, and very narrow snout. Its length seems to have been upwards of sixty feet, and its bulk to have equalled that of an elephant seven feet high. Geol. Trans. series ii. vol. i. parti. The structure of this genus makes an approach to that of fishes, but it has a length and flexibility of

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