OCR Text |
Show 1875.] F. W. H. FLOWER ON THE MUSK-DELR. 183 There is, however, little practical difficulty in deciding, by an examination of the molar teeth of any of the existing Ruminants, to I,^Afe Cu " V * 5>el0nSs ; and> Judged b 7 this test, Moschus is aecideclly brachyodont, and thereby resembles the Cervine members or tne group, though in some details, as has already been mentioned, it has slight peculiarities of its own. The best method, however, of testing the claims oi Moschus to a definite_ position will be to take seriatim all the principal characters in which it shows variation from the average Pecorine type, and consider in which direction they severally tend. I. The absence of frontal appendages. This is a well-marked external character, but one the significance of which has been much altered by Mr. Swinhoe's discovery of Hydropotes, which, although its anatomy is not yet fully known, I think may be safelv assumed to be a true Deer. It is certainly less aberrant than Moschus*. Lven before the existence of other Deer without antlers was known, it might have been suspected that such appendages were really onlv of secondary importance in a natural system of classification, as the'y occur among existing Deer in such infinite variety of form and size without correlation with other structural modifications ; and as, moreover, palaeontology teaches us that Deer (i. e. animals having all the osteological and dental characters of the group, as Dremotherium) abounded before the antlered forms came into being, it is by no means unreasonable to suppose that some of the recent members of the family might retain this primitive characterf. As one or more species of true Deer are without antlers in either sex, as all (Tarandus excepted) have none in the female sex, and as, on the other hand, no Bovida are known without frontal appendages in the male and nearly all have them in both sexes, it follows that a ruminant, like Moschus, wanting these parts is so far more likely to belong to the Cervine than to the Bovine section. The absence of antlers is no indication of special relationship to the Tragulina any more than it is to the Camels, Pigs, or any of the early forms of the order. II. Dentition. The brachyodont character of the molar teeth, as lately mentioned, is some evidence in favour of Moschus belonging to the Cervine section, but not by itself conclusive; for even if we knew of no existing Bovine animal in this case, it would be quite possible to conceive of some member of the group retaining a character once common to all. * The still more recently discovered Lophotragus michianus, Swinhoe (P. Z. S. 1874, p. 452), appears to be another Deer without antlers; but very little is yet known of its structure. t Dremotherium is sometimes placed among* the Tragulidce, or rather the artificial group in which those animals as well as Moschus were included ; but in the majority of its dental and cranial characters it was a true Deer, of course somewhat generalized and in so far approaching the Tragulina. Gelocus was an older form, and retained the four premolars of the more primitive types. They both appear to belong to the stock from which the Pecora are descended after the ancestors of the Tragulina had branched off from it. The latter, as will be seen in the tabular view of the classification of the group (p. 189), are the lowest and least-modified of all the existing selenodonl Artiodactyles. |