On Fossil Remains of Mammals found in China

Abstract

S ince making known in 1858 the fact of a fossil tooth of an elephantine species having been obtained at Shanghai, China, I have omitted no opportunity of acquiring further evidences of the extinct mammals of that part of the Asiatic continent; and I am now enabled to communicate characters of remains of several other mammalian genera, through the kindness of Robert Swinhoe, Esq., late H.M. Consul in the Island of Formosa, and to whom zoology is indebted for several interesting discoveries. Before proceeding to the description of Mr. Swinhoe’s specimens, I may premise a more complete description than has appeared of the first-mentioned fossil, of which outlines of the grinding-surface and inner and outer side views are appended, of the natural size (Pl. XXVII. figs. 1, 2, 3). The tooth in question is the second upper molar ( d 3 of the type series) from the right side. Its crown, in a length of three inches, is divided into five transverse ridges, the proportions of which, as to height and basal breadth, with the ridged and wrinkled character of the enamel, suffice for its reference to a species of the group of Proboscidians discovered by Crawfurd in the Irrawadi Tertiaries of Ava, and described by Clift in the second volume of the second series of the Transactions of the Geological Society (p. 369, pls. 36-39, 1828). And here I beg leave to express my sense of the wise appreciation of the needs of the palæontologist by the Council of the Society