Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 26.djvu/69

Rh From the time when Cuvier's wonderful researches upon the extinct Mammals of the Paris gypsum first made intercalary types known, and caused them to be recognized as such, the number of such forms has steadily increased among the higher Mammalia. Not only do we now know numerous intercalary forms of Ungulata, but M. Gaudry's great monograph upon the fossils of Pikermi (which strikes me as one of the most perfect pieces of palæontological work I have seen for a long time) shows us, among the Primates, Mesopithecus as an intercalary form between the Semnopitheci and the Macaci; and among the Carnivora, Hyænictis and Ictitherium as intercalary, or, perhaps, linear types between the Viverridæ and the Hyænidæ.

Hardly any order of the higher Mammalia stands so apparently separate and isolated from the rest as that of the Cetacea; though a careful consideration of the structure of the pinnipede Carnivora, or Seals, shows, in them, many an approximation towards the still more completely marine mammals. The extinct Zeuglodon, however, presents us with an intercalary form between the type of the Seals and that of the Whales. The skull of this great Eocene sea-monster, in fact, shows—by the narrow and prolonged interorbital region; the extensive union of the parietal bones in a sagittal suture; the well-developed nasal bones; the distinct and large incisors implanted in premaxillary bones, which take a full share in bounding the fore part of the gape; the two-fanged molar teeth with triangular and serrated crowns, not exceeding five on each side in each jaw; and the existence of a deciduous dentition—its close relation with the Seals. While, on the other hand, the produced rostral form of the snout, the long symphysis, and the low coronary process of the mandible are approximations to the cetacean form of those parts.

The scapula resembles that of the cetacean Hyperoodon, but the supraspinous fossa is larger and more seal-like; as is the humerus, which differs from that of the Cetacea in presenting true articular surfaces for the free jointing of the bones of the forearm. In the apparently complete absence of hinder limbs, and in the characters of the vertebral column, the Zeuglodon lies on the cetacean side of the boundary line; so that, upon the whole, the Zeuglodonts, transitional as they are, are conveniently retained in the cetacean order. And the publication, in 1864, of M. Van Beneden's memoir on the Miocene and Pliocene Squalodon, furnished much better means than anatomists previously possessed of fitting in another link of the chain which connects the existing Cetacea with Zeuglodon. The teeth are much more numerous, although the molars exhibit the zeuglodont double fang; the nasal bones are very short, and the upper surface of the rostrum presents the groove, filled up during life by the prolongation of the ethmoidal cartilage, which is so characteristic of the majority of the Cetacea.

It appears to me that, just as among the existing Carnivora, the walruses and the eared seals are intercalary forms between the fissipede Carnivora and the ordinary seals, so the Zeuglodons are