File:A history of British fossil mammals, and birds (1846) (14750993495).jpg

Identifier: historyofbritish00owen (find matches)
Title: A history of British fossil mammals, and birds
Year: 1846 (1840s)
Authors: Owen, Richard, 1804-1892
Subjects: Mammals, Fossil Birds, Fossil Paleontology
Publisher: London, J. Van Voorst
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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n Rodeiitia. 216 LEPORIDiE. Naturae rerum paupertas, ut depravatione formarum va-rietatera sibi quaerere velit; estque, ut omnia probant,imaginaria lia^c specierum transmutatio. We can nowadd to the proofs of the stabihty of generic and specificcharacters which Pallas might have derived from the orga-nization of the Siberian species oi Lagomys^ the fact thata species of that genus whose chief external charactersmight be explained by hypothetical degeneration of theears, hind-legs, and tail of the Hare, claims as high anantiquity as any species of the true genus Lepus. Remains of a Lagomys were discovered by ProfessorSedgwick and Mr. Murchison in a lacustrine deposit atCEningen, associated, like the Pika of Kents Hole, witha species of Fox, indistinguishable from that now exist-ing, and affording another of those instructive exampleswhich exhibit a gradual passage from an ancient Fauna,or animal population, to that which now prevails. ELEPHAS PRIMIGENIU.S 217 PACHYDERMATA. PROBOSCIDIA.
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218 PROBOSCIDIA, ELEPHAS PRIMIGENIUS. Mammoth. Elephas primic/enius, Blumenbach, Voigts Maga- zine, Bd. V. Elephant fossile ou Mammoiith des Russes, Cuvier, Annales du Museum, torn. viii. Ossem. Fossiles, t. i. Fossil Elephant, Buckland, Reliquiae Diluvi- anae, p. 171. Elephas primigenms or Mammoth, Owen, Report of British Asso- ciation, 1843. When the science of fossil organic remains was less,advanced than it is at present, when its facts and generali-zations were new, and sounded strange not only to earsunscientific but to anatomists and naturalists, the an-nouncement of the former existence of animals in countrieswhere the like had not been known within the memory ofman, still more of species that had never been seen alivein any part of the world, was received with distrust anddoubt, and many endeavours were made to explain thesephenomena by reference to circumstances which experienceshowed to have led to the introduction of tropical animalsinto temperate zones within the historic

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