Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 26.djvu/585

 1870.] OWEN CHINESE FOSSIL MAMMALS. 417 Felidse, &c. The anterior tooth, associated with carnassial teeth and the small tubercular tooth, was compressed and sharp-pointed. The low condyle forming part of the angle of the jaw, was such as occurs in Thylacinus, not as in Cheiromys. Dr. Duncan remarked that it is by no means necessary that all Carnivorous Mammals should be formed upon the same type, and that he did not see why there should not be a carnivorous form of the Kangaroo type. The Chairman said that the settlement of these questions must now be postponed until we obtain further materials. He mentioned the discovery by Dr. Krefft, in the interior of Australia, of a species of fish resembling Lepidosiren, and possessing singular affinities to some of the Devonian fishes. 2. On Fossil Remains of Mammals found in China. By Professor Owen, F.R.S., F.G.S. [Plates XXVII.-XXIX.] Since making known in 1858 the fact of a fossil tooth of an ele- phantine species having been obtained at Shanghai, China*, I have omitted no opportunity of acquiring further evidences of the ex- tinct mammals of that part of the Asiatic continent ; and I am now enabled to communicate characters of remains of several other mammalian genera, through the kindness of Robert Swinhoe, Esq., late H.M. Consul in the Island of Formosa, and to whom zoology is indebted for several interesting discoveries. Before proceeding to the description of Mr. Swinhoe's specimens, I may premise a more complete description than has appeared of the first-mentioned fossil, of which outlines of the grinding-surface and inner and outer side views are appended, of the natural size (PI. XXVII. figs. 1, 2, 3). Stegodon sinensis, Ow. The tooth in question is the second upper molar (c?3 of the type series) from the right side. Its crown, in a length of three inches, is divided into five transverse ridges, the proportions of which, as to height and basal breadth, with the ridged and wrinkled character of the enamel, suffice for its reference to a species of the group of Pro- boscidians discovered by Crawford in the Irrawadi Tertiaries of Ava, and described by Clift in the second volume of the second series of the Transactions of the Geological Society (p. 369, pis. 36-39, 1828). And here I beg leave to express my sense of the wise appreciation of the needs of the palaeontologist by the Council of the Society in publishing figures of the type molars of those " Transi- tional Mastodons"f of the natural size. In the present tooth the first or foremost ridge (PI. XXYII. figs. 1 " President's Address," p. lxxxvi. t Odontography, p. 224, Section 228.
 * By Mr. Lockhart, ' Eeport of the British Association for the year 1858,'