. Edinburgh journal of natural history and of the physical sciences. The above figure represents the head of a wild Rabbit, which is preserved in the private museum of Mr Robert Frazer, jeweller, 17, St Andrew's Street, Edinburgh; with an extraoi-dinary elongation above the gums, of both the upper and under inci- sors, the former measuring an inch and five-eighths, and reaching considerably above the nostrils, while the latter is seven-eighths of an inch in length, and very much in- curved, so much so, that their points would nearly reach the palate when the mouth IS closed. The under incisors
. Edinburgh journal of natural history and of the physical sciences. The above figure represents the head of a wild Rabbit, which is preserved in the private museum of Mr Robert Frazer, jeweller, 17, St Andrew's Street, Edinburgh; with an extraoi-dinary elongation above the gums, of both the upper and under inci- sors, the former measuring an inch and five-eighths, and reaching considerably above the nostrils, while the latter is seven-eighths of an inch in length, and very much in- curved, so much so, that their points would nearly reach the palate when the mouth IS closed. The under incisors are also considerably bent, becoming gradually thinner and more depressed towards their points, where they are divergent, the inner sides being nearly a quarter of an inch apart at the tips. Their ordinary length in the wild Rabbit is about a quarter of an inch. Instances of the same kind have been noticed before, in Plott's History of Staffordshire; in Morton's Natural History of North- amptonshire ; and in Loudon's JMagazine, where an account of a lusus of this kind is given by the Rev. L. Jenyns, the object of which is preserved in the Museum of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. Cuvier says, that the prismatic form of the cutting teeth occasions them to grow from the root as fast as they wear away at the edge ; and this tendency to increase in length is so powerful, that if one of them be lost or broken, the opposite one in the other jaw having nothing to oppose or communicate, becomes developed to a mon_ sfrous extent. The elongation of the teeth in the specimen now before us, could not have been occasioned by any accident of this kind, as the development is exces- sive in both upper and under teeth, while none of them evince the slightest appear- ance of having been fractured. Therefore some other mode of accounting for this instance must be sought for, and we would rather attribute it to the unequal action of the jaws, in the under one not being exactly opposed to the
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade, bookpublisheredinburgh, bookyear1835
