Page:Natural History (1848).djvu/140

130 fence. The structure of the scapula [or shoulder-blade] seems to shew that the fore-leg was adapted to co-operate with the tusks and teeth in digging and separating large vegetables from the bottom."

M. de Blainville, however, and some other of the French zoologists, contend that the Dinotherium approached still nearer to the Manatide; that it was, in fact, "a Dugong with tusk-incisors." And they judge that the magnitude of the nasal opening, and the enlargement of the surrounding surfaces, would agree as well with an immense and overspreading upper lip, as with a proboscis. There is, however, no reason to doubt that this singular form supplied a connecting link between the Dugongs and the Elephants.

This animal is believed to have measured eighteen feet in length: the lower jaw, exclusive of the tusks, measures four feet in length and three in breadth. The character of the molar teeth shews that its food was exclusively vegetable.

In these huge animals there are five toes on each foot, which are perfectly distinct in the skeleton, but are so entirely enveloped in the thick and callous skin of the foot, that there would be no indication of them externally, but for the round box-like nails or hoofs, attached to the extremity of this sort of shoe. There are no canine teeth; nor incisors, properly speaking, but in the incisive bones of the upper jaw are