Chambers's miscellany of useful and entertaining tracts . onding strata in the London basin,a species referred to the family of vultures. THE GREAT PACHYDERMS. The most remarkable of the animals found in the Paris basinare large Pachyderms, or thick-skinned animals, of a divisionnow represented only hj four species. By the discovery of theseremains, naturalists were enabled to make up a comparativelycomplete series of a division of the earths creatures, which hadpreviously been remarkably imperfect. Two genera are parti-cularly described by geologists, namely, Palseotheria and Anoplo-theria, t
Chambers's miscellany of useful and entertaining tracts . onding strata in the London basin,a species referred to the family of vultures. THE GREAT PACHYDERMS. The most remarkable of the animals found in the Paris basinare large Pachyderms, or thick-skinned animals, of a divisionnow represented only hj four species. By the discovery of theseremains, naturalists were enabled to make up a comparativelycomplete series of a division of the earths creatures, which hadpreviously been remarkably imperfect. Two genera are parti-cularly described by geologists, namely, Palseotheria and Anoplo-theria, the former being intermediate in character between thetapir of South America and the rhinoceros, while the latter seemsa link from the rhinoceros to the hippopotamus. The Great Paleeo-therium was an animal of the size of a horse, or about four feetand a half to the wither. It wasmore squat and clumsy in itsproportions than the horse; thehead was more massive, and theextremities thicker and each foot were three largetoes, rounded and unprovided. Form of Palseotherium. with claws 5 and from the nose proceeded a short ileshy palseotherium probablylived, like the tapir of North America and Asia, in swampy dis-tricts, feeding, as its congeners still do, on coarse vegetable sub-stances. The Anoplotheria, of which six species have been determined,were of various bulk, from a hare up to a dwarf ass. Twospecies were about eig*ht feet long, including a tail of three animals seem also to have inhabited marshy places, re-pairing frequently to the water to feed upon roots and the leavesof aquatic succulents. Another species was light and graceful,like the gazelle, and j)robably, like that animal, fed upon aro-matic herbs and the young shoots of shrubs. Amongst theother animals found in the Eocene of the Paris basin, were wolf and fox, and of the racoon and genette, ofdormouse, and squirrel; besides birds, reptiles, species of thethe opossum,and fishes. The sec
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