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Show 1870.] DR. J. MURIE ON SAIGA TARTARICA. 467 was very rudimentary; so that I am inclined to think this tooth is comparatively early in life. The succeeding premolars, 2 and 3, are of fair size, being a trifle broader, though not quite so thick, as the upper premolars I and 2, with which they come into contact during mastication. These latter are short; and the former accordingly are lengthened and raised somewhat above the plane of detrition, chiefly however mesially. The said two hinder lower premolars are each sinuous in contour, from the tolerably pronounced character of the enamel ridges and concavities. The last has well-defined lobes, and is rather larger than that in advance. Together they are 0*6 inch broad, and about 0*2 thick. The hindermost inferior true molar, quite 1 inch broad and 0*3 inch greatest thickness, has, as in Bovines, a third posterior lobe, of larger size. The penultimate molar is 0*6, the antepenultimate 0*5 inch in antero-posterior diameter, and they are each slightly narrower across than the last tooth of the series. (E.) Comparison of the Cranium and Dentition - " Sceleton, maxime quoad cranium, singulare est"*. These few words of Pallas comprehend much. When Dr. Falconerf wrote that "in the Siva-therium we have a Ruminant connecting the family with the Pachy-dermata, and at the same time so marked by individual peculiarities as to be without an analogue in its order," he was at too remote a distance from brother naturalists or easy access to libraries; else he he would at once have recognized in tbe Antilope saiga certain of those outre features which he and Captain Cautley so graphically describe in the Murkunda fossil. Other, later writers have not failed to note resemblances. In the Saiga, unquestionably, we have a repetition of the short nasals of the Sivathere, and large size of the nasal echancrure ; but with these peculiarities further likeness ceases, unless it may be that the lachrymal and praemaxilla bore analogy ; these, however, the state of the fossil specimens does not admit of corn-paring. The Titanotherium proutii of Professor Leidy J and Mega-cerops coloradensis ofDr. Linz§, are representative of two ancient North-American forms which obviously have relations to the above, inasmuch as thickness and diminished length of nasals predominate. The form of teeth in the first two of these fossils is unlike that in Saiga ; those of the third are not known. All three, as well as the allied Bramatherium, are furthermore distinguished from Saiga in their possessing four horns, the anterior pair prefrontal. When we come to compare existing Bovidae with that under consideration, none have such short nasals, premaxillaries, and scooping out of maxillae. In these respects there is no connexion whatever with its associates Gazella, Procapra, Pantholops, and Cervicapra. In Pantholops, however, as in Eleotragus and Rupicapra, the * Op. cit. p. 44. t Asiatic Researches, vol. xix. (1836), and, with additional M S . notes, in Dr. Murchison's collected edition of his works, 1868. + The Ancient Fauna of Nebraska, p. 72. § Acad, of Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, Meeting for Jan. 1870. |
