The first object of this work is the comparison of fossil with living species; and this comparison bears principally on two classes of vertebrate animals: mammals and reptiles. The author commences this comparative history of the species of the ancient and the actual world, with the pachydermata; he continues it with the ruminants, the carnivora, the rodentia, the edentata, and the cetacea; and concludes with the reptiles. The fundamental result of the whole work is, that no fossil species, or scarcely any, at least in the two classes of mammifers and reptiles, has its analogue among living species. It has been already said that to arrive at this result, it was necessary that the author should review all the fossil species, that he should compare them all, and one by one, with all the living species, and it has been shown to what precise, rigorous, and almost infallible laws he has subjected the admirable art of reconstructing all thes lost species from their scattered remains. I shall apply myself here chiefly + another point: that of the particular and detailed comparison of fossil with existing species. * * # I begin, as M. Cuvier has done, with the pachydermata. This family, natural as it is, was almost entirely overlooked by Linnæus. Storr, who had clearer conceptions of it, characterizes it by this definition: mammals with hoofs with more than two toes. But without speaking of the anoplotherium, a fossil species which has only two toes, and which is not the less a true pachyderm, it is evident, from a consideration of the whole structure, that the solipeds should be united to the ordinary pachydermata. The number of the toes, therefore, can no more be taken into consideration in this family than in the others. Cuvier defines it: animals with hoofs, non-ruminants. Before him, the order or family of pachydermata comprised but five genera: the elephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the tapir, and the hog. M. Cuvier introduced into it two other genera, the horse and the daman. Considered in their relations to the revolutions of the globe, the fossil pachydermata form two groups: the pachydermata of loose and alluvial formations, and those of the plaster quarries, so abundantly accumulated in the environs of Paris. To the former pertain the fossil elephant, mastodon, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, horse, &c.; to the second, the palæotherium, the anoplotherium, the lophiodon, the anthracotherium, the chæropotamus, the adapis. All the species of the first of these two groups are now lost; but the greater part of its genera subsists. Not so with the second, in which both genera and species are equally extinct. • Beginning with the pachydermata of loose and alluvial formations, the first of these animals which M. Cuvier studied under this new point of view, of the comparison of fossil with living species, was the elephant. Till then, almost everything relative to this singular quadruped was alike unknown. It was not known, at least with any precision, whether there was only a single species of elephant or several species, nor, with stronger reason, whether the fossil bones might be referred or not to the living species. The first truly specific distinction of these animals, that which is founded on the structure of their molar teeth, only goes back to Camper. Blumenbach had also seen this difference in the form and number of the lamina of the molar teeth, which distinguishes the elephant of Africa from that of the Indies; but so far this was all, and it is to Cuvier that we owe the determination of all the other differences, derived from the bones of the skull, from those of the face, and of the *The first edition of this great work, published in 1812, was scarcely more than the reunion of the memoirs, inserted successively by the author, in the Annales du Muséum d'histoire naturelle. The second edition appeared from 1812 to 1824. It is not only enriched with a great number of new facts, but the entire work is recast throughout, and arranged in more methodical order. The third edition is of 1828, and is distinguished from the second by certain additions to the Introduction, which latter has been often printed separately, and has become celebrated under the title of Discours sur les révolutions de la surface du globe. entire skeleton. He shows that it is from these bones, especially those of the skull, as well as from their teeth, ears, &c., that the two living species, that of Africa and that of India, are distinguished from each other; thus the species of India has the head long, the forehead flat, or even concave, while that of Africa has the head round and forehead convex; the former has the laminæ of its molar teeth in the form of wavy or festooned ribands; in the latter these laminæ are lozenge-shaped; this last has larger ears and tusks, &c. As to the fossil species. or mammoth of Russia, it is essentially distinguished from the two living species, and in particular from the species of India, to which, however, it is most nearly allied, by its molars, the laminæ of which are closer and straighter, by the alveoli of its tusks, which are longer, by its lower jaw, which is more obtuse, &c.; finally, the entire individual, discovered in 1806, on the coast of Siberia, has taught us that it had two sorts of hair, a reddish, coarse, and tufted wool, and long, black and stiff hairs.* To this it may be added that the bones of this last species are never found but in a fossil state, and that, on the contrary, the bones of the other two species are never found in that state. The fossil is, therefore, a lost species. Further, its bones, dispersed through almost all the countries of the world, are always found in the same strata as those of the mastodon, the rhinoceros, and the hippopotamus. All these species, then, are of the same epoch, and are all alike extinct. Among them the species which approaches nearest to the elephant is the mastodon; it was of the same general form, had feet of the same structure, a proboscis, and long tusks; yet these were essential differences, as well from these tusks being curved in the opposite direction to those of the elephant as from the circumstance that the molar teeth, instead of being formed of transverse laminæ, presented a simple corona well furnished with tubercular or manillated prominences. The mastodon is the largest of fossil animals, yet Daubenton fell into the error of referring a part of its bones to the elephant and another part to the hippopotamus. W. Hunter pointed out that the mastodon differs sensibly from both those animals. Camper showed that it more closely approximated to the first than to the second. Finally, M. Cuvier has completely demonstrated that the mastodon was neither elephant nor hippopotamus, and that, though nearer to the former, it is essentially distinguished from it by its jaw-teeth; and that not only as regards species but genus. That genus itself already comprises as many as six species, of which the most celebrated is the great mastodon or animal of the Ohio, which has left its bones only in North America. Another species, long confounded with the latter, has been distinguished from it by M. Cuvier; this was the mastodon with narrow teeth, the bones of which are found in both continents. Of four other species, two pertained to America and two to Europe. The genus of elephants showed us but one species destroyed; the entire genus of mastodons has perished. The genus hippopotamus, which, so far, is known to possess but one living species, numbers already several fossil species. The first or largest, and the only one regarding which some imperfect notions were entertained before M. Cuvier, differed nearly as much from the living species as the fossil elephant from living elephants. A second, the small fossil hippopotamus, differed much more. The others are as yet little known. The bones of the hippopotamus accompany, in many places, those of elephants and mastodons, but they are much more rare; the upper Val d'Arno is hitherto the only site where they have been found in any abundance. After the genus hippopotamus comes that of the rhinoceros. Here, as with the rest, the osteology and the distinction of living species are always the two points of comparison to which the whole study of fossil bones and species refers *The bones which were shown at Paris, towards the commencement of the 17th century, as being the bones of King Teutobochus, and which were the subject of a long controversy between Habicot and Riolan, are now at the museum. They are not those of an elephant, as Riolan thought, but of the mastodon. itself. We know at present four living species of the rhinoceros. The first is the rhinoceros bicornis, of the Cape, which has molars, but no incisors; the second is the rhinoceros unicornis, of the Indies, which has incisors separated from the molars by a vacant space; the third, the rhinoceros of Sumatra, appears to form, as it were, an intermediate species between the two preceding, for it has two horns like the rhinoceros of the Cape, and incisors like that of India. The fourth is the rhinoceros unicornis of Java. Thus, there are four living species; two having one horn, two having a second horn. The number of fossil species is not clearly established. The most celebrated, that whose nostrils are separated by a bony partition, is found in Siberia, and in different parts of Germany. The second, that whose nostrils are not separated by a bone, has been thus far found only in Italy. Both species had two horns, and both appear to have wanted incisors. As to other species, to the number of two or three, they are as yet indicated only by a few fragments. It was to the species with partitioned nostrils that the entire rhinoceros, withdrawn in 1770 from the ice on the banks of the Wilhouï, belonged. This rhinoceros was covered with a thick coat of hair, much like the fossil elephant, which seems to prove that both could live at the north. "Thus," says M. Cuvier, "the cold countries which surround the pole must have had, at the epoch which preceded the last revolution of the globe, the great pachydermata, as they have now the great ruminants; the musk-ox, the bison, the elk, the Canadian stag, the reindeer, the great carnivora, the white bear, the morse, and so many large seals." We know, as yet, only the lower jaw of the elasmotherium, a fossil genus of Siberia, discovered by M. Fischer, a genus entirely lost, like the mastodon, and which, to judge from this jaw, must, in form and stature, have approximated to the rhinoceros. The genus equus has left a great number of its bones, mingled with those of the elephant and rhinoceros; but there has been thus far no osteological difference observed between these fossil species and the living species; and what is not less singular is, that none has been found, at least none sufficiently fixed and decided to be really characteristic, between the different living species of this genus: the horse, the ass, the zebra, the quagga, &c. The bones of the hog have not yet been discovered in any strata so old as those of the fossil elephant, horse, and rhinoceros. M. Cuvier gives, however, the osteology of this genus, for his work has two objects equally important: the determination of fossil species, and the elements and means of this determination; that is to say, the general laws of comparative osteology. Thus, it is only to establish this great assemblage of osteological facts and laws that he gives the description of the daman, for neither have the remains of this animal been found among fossil bones. The daman, a small animal of Africa and Arabia, passed for a rodent. M. Cuvier shows that it is a true pachyderm, and the one, indeed, which of all others, approaches nearest to the rhinoceros. A genus not less singular than that of the daman, and the osteology of which was not less unknown, is that of the tapirs. These number at present three living species: two of America and one of the Indies; and M. Cuvier describes several fossil animals related to the tapirs.* The elephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the mastodon, &c., as here described, were the pachydermata of the alluvial formations. We see that all their species are distinct from the living species; that they are all lost, and that they were all destroyed at the same epoch and by the same catastrophe; for their bones are found in the same deposits, every where united and mingled together. The fossil pachydermata which we are about to consider are all of another epoch, and one much more remote; and nearly all of these were discovered by M. Cuvier, in those plaster-quarries of Paris, which have thence become so celebra *As regards his gigantic tapir, we now know that it is a very different animal from the tapirs. This great tapir of M. Cuvier is the Deinotherium giganteum, the head of which has been made known to us by MM. de Klipstein and Kaup. M. Cuvier scarcely knew any part of it but the molar teeth. 11 s were ted; they are the palæotherium, the anoplotherium, the charopotamus, the adapis. The bones of all these genera-most of which include several speciesmingled and confounded together. It was necessary to begin by separating them; it was necessary, then, to assign each bone to its species, and finally to reconstruct the entire skeleton from each of them; and it was here that the method devised by the author for this reconstruction was exhibited in all its efficacy. In regard to fossil species, the teeth are always the first part to be studied, and the most important, for it is from the teeth that it must be determined whether the animal was carnivorous or herbivorous, and even, in some cases, to what particular order of such animals it pertained. M. Cuvier then having re-established the complete series of teeth which were found to be most common among those which he had collected, soon saw that they proceeded from two different species, of which one was provided with prominent canine teeth, and which the other wanted. The restitution of the teeth thus gave two species of pachydermata: the one with prominent canines, being the palæotherium; the other, without them, or with a continuous series of teeth, the anoplotherium. Further, this restitution of itself showed, in each of these species, the type of a new genus; two genera related to the tapir and rhinoceros, but two genera entirely lost; for no living pachyderm reproduces, even generically, their dental system. And such, on the other hand, was the rigor of the zoological laws followed by the author, that the teeth having given him two distinct genera, it could not be doubted that all the other parts of the skeleton, the head, trunk, feet, all mingled indiscriminately with one another and with these teeth, would be also of two different genera. He at once foresaw, therefore, for each of these genera, a head, a trunk, feet of a particular form, as he had found for them an appropriate dental system; and he was not long in finding all that he had foreseen. The teeth being re-established, the restitution of the heads claimed his attention, and it was soon evident that these also were of two genera. Next to the teeth and head, the feet are the most characteristic part of the skeleton, and their restitution gave likewise two genera. It remained, therefore, only to refer each foot to its head, and each head to its dental system. Now, the restitution of the hind feet had shown them to be of two kinds, some with three toes, others only two; and the restitution of the fore feet had yielded the same result. Availing himself, by turns, of the general analogy of the species which he reproduced with the nearest living species, and of the particular relations of proportion and size of the different parts in question, one with another, M. Cuvier first united the hind feet with two toes to the fore feet with two, and repeated the process with those having three; and always guided by the same analogy, the same relations, he united the former with the dental system which was destitute of prominent canines, and the latter with the dental system which had them. He thus united in succession, for each genus, all the bones of the head, the trunk, the extremities; he reproduced, finally, the entire skeleton, and scarcely was this great labor terminated when, by a singular hazard, a nearly complete skeleton of one of them, found at Pantin, came to confirm all the results which had been obtained. In this skeleton, so fortunately discovered, all the bones were united together as M. Cuvier had united them; nature having acted no otherwise than the admirable laws discerned by him and his own wonderful sagacity had acted. A first species of each genus being in this manner reconstructed, their number was not slow in augmenting. M. Cuvier soon counted five species of anoplotheriums, and not less than 11 or 12 palæotheriums. All the former are from the environs of Paris; the most common was of the size of the ass; another of that of the hog; a third, of that of the gazelle; a fourth, of that of the hare; a fifth was still smaller. Among the palæotheriums there were, at Paris alone, seven species; one the size of the horse, one of the tapir, one of the sheep, one of the hare, &c; another species discovered near Orleans, nearly equalled in size the rhinoceros. The palæotherium which, at Paris, always accompanies the anoplotherium, is accompanied almost everywhere else by another genus not less remarkable, and which, by a singular exception, is absolutely wanting at Paris, the lophiodon. This new genus, also approximated greatly to the tapirs, like the palæotherium and anoplotherium; is, like these last, entirely lost, and like them, already rich in species. M. Cuvier has made known a dozen, all of France. The genus charopotamus and the genus adapis number each but one species. The genus anthracotherium numbers two, one of which approached the rhinoceros in size. The two former genera are of the environs of Paris; the third was first found near Savona, and afterwards in Alsace and Velay. With these numerous pachydermata, first among terrestrial mammals to occupy the earth, M. Cuvier collected the remains of carnivora of the genus of the dog, the genet, the raccoon, &c.; a bat of the genus vespertilio; a species of didelphys; two rodents, one pertaining to the dormouse, the other to the squirrel; six species of birds, relics of the crocodile, the trionyx, the emys, and certain species of fresh-water fish. But to restrict ourselves to the pachydermata which form, beyond comparison, the most important part of this antique animal colonization of the globe, we have nearly 40 species and five genera totally lost; and what is not less noticeable, none of their species are found mingled with those of the elephant and the mastodon. The two classes of animals belonged therefore to two essentially distinct ages. * To the pachydermata succeeded, in M. Cuvier's investigations, the ruminants. It is only in the alluvial formations that the bones of these abound, and here two genera especially show themselves in great number: the stag and the ox. It is in the caverns of Germany, England, France, &c., that the fossil remains of the carnivora especially abound. After having extricated the living species of these animals from the confusion which had thus far attended their determination, M. Cuvier proceeds to describe the fossil species-four species of bears that of the caves, the most numerous of all, the arctoid bear, the intermediate bear, the bear with flattened teeth; a hyena, almost as abundant as that of the bears, which is most so; two tigers, a wolf, a mouffet, two weasels, a glutton, &c. The fossil rodentia are not numerous. The great beds of the loose formations have yielded hitherto but one large species of the beaver, called by M. Fischer the trogontherium. The bone breccia gives two species of the lagomys, two of the rabbit, of the field mouse, the rat, &c. The order of the edentata has two fossil, but gigantic species: the megalonyx, of the size of the largest ox, and the megatherium, of that of the largest rhinoceros. These two enormous species are from America. An unguiculate phalanx, found in a canton of the Palatinate, not far from the Rhine, indicates a third species related to the pangolin, and quite as gigantic as the two others. So much for the inhabitants of the land formations. The cetacea all pertain to strata essentially marine. Here, with the cetacea, occur the amphibious mammals, the seal and the walruss. A first group of these marine mammals, whose osteology and living species themselves were then so little known, preceded all the terrestrial mammals. Their remains disclosed to M. Cuvier bones of the dolphin, the lamantin or manatee, and the walruss. A second group had succeeded the palæotheriums; and among them M. Cuvier recognized a dolphin, a whale, and an entire genus wholly lost, the ziphius, related to the sperm whales and hyperoodons. We come now to the reptiles. M. Cuvier considers in succession the crocodiles, tortoises, lizards, batrachians, and concludes with the extraordinary family of the ichthyosaurus and the plesiosaurus. The fossil crocodiles are very numerous, M. Cuvier having described as many as fifteen species. The fossil tortoises are even more numerous still, from sixteen to seventeen species having been already discriminated; among them, several of the trionyx, several of the emys, or the tortoise of fresh water, several of the chelonia, or tortoises of the sea, and some |