Incisors; canines ; dermal horn median; nasal septum

The phylogeny of the rhinoceroses may be represented as follows:

FIG. 21. Aceratherium incisivum Cuv., skull, one-seventh natural size; from the Miocene of Epplesheim, Germany. From Gaudry, after Kaup.

FIG. 22. Aphelops fossiger Cope, skull, one-fifth natural size, from side and below; from Loup Fork beds of Kansas. From Marsh.

FIG. 23. Aphelops megalodus Cope, skull from above, one-sixth natural size. From the Loup Fork bed of Colorado; original.

The history of the TAPIRIDA has been mainly unravelled by Scott. Their origin from the Protapirine division of the Hyracotheriinæ cannot be doubted, but the intermediate forms have been mostly lost. The oldest genus appears in the Lower Miocene of North America (White River), and it is followed by

Tapiravus (Marsh) of the Upper Miocene. Tapirus is first found in the Upper Miocene of Germany (Epplesheim). The recent species of the family belong to Tapirus L., and Elasmognathus (Gill).

The three genera are distinguished as follows:

Two superior premolars different from true molars ;.. Tapiravus Marsh.
One superior premolar different from true molars;
no heel of third inferior molar; nasal septum
cartilaginous;........

Like Tapirus, but nasal septum osseous;..

Tapirus L.
Elasmognathus Gill.

The order in which these genera stand above, represents their phylogenetic as well as their taxonomic relations, the oldest genus standing first.

(To be concluded.)

EDITORS' TABLE.

EDITORS: E. D. COPE AND J. S. KINGSLEY.

To discover the relation of mind to matter is the goal of scientific research, and every addition to knowledge may be regarded as a contribution to this subject. The advent of NeoLamarkianism brings the question immediately within the view of the student of natural history, where it belongs, and brings it out of the metaphysical limbo, where it has so long lain neglected by science. The evidence that the environment is not the only factor in evolution is abundant enough, and the attempt to restrict the remaining factors to "heredity" has not long satisfied the mind of science. The evidence that the movements of animal organs and tissues is the other factor, constituting the source of heredity, is becoming clearer and clearer. The relation of sensation (consciousness or mind) to motion, is supposed to be well known, so that the direct dependence of evolution on the former seems to be an inference fully justified by the knowledge now in our possession.

But every step in this logical succession is, and ought to be, contested. It is denied by some that animal movements do materially affect animal structures. It is further denied that such

modifications if produced can be inherited. Since, however, it is admitted that mechanically-profitable variations do appear, and that they are inherited, the inquiry at this point is limited to the question whether the impacts, strains, torsions, flexures, etc., to which the parts of an animal are subjected by its motions do affect the structure or not. The final contest is, however, of

a remarkable character. It is denied that the mental condition of an animal-i.e., its sensations-has any influence in the determination of its movements. This proposition is apparently equivalent to the assertion that designed movements do not exist. An animal does not eat because it is hungry; it does not seek flight because it is frightened; it does not seek shelter because of temperature or storm; its voice is exerted without purpose, etc., etc. We imagine that it will be long before such an opinion can be sustained by any scientific evidence. Yet it seems to be the only alternative that is open to those who deny that consciousness is at the basis of evolution. It would seem to be the final reductio ad absurdum of that side of the question.

A brief statement of a discussion of these points referred to in the last NATURALIST is deferred to the December number, general notes, department Psychology.

THE appearance of the first number of Dr. Whitman's Journal of Morphology seems an event of sufficient importance in the history of American science to warrant more than a mere announcement. Several times have magazines been started which were fondly expected to play the same part in the United States that the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science does in England, but all have lamentably failed. Their editors have not succeeded in gaining the confidence and support of the best American workers. This rock Dr. Whitman has apparently escaped, and his first number, in variety of subject and breadth ot treatment as well as in beautiful appearance, will compare favorably with any publication in the old world.

RECENT LITERATURE.

The Origin of the North American Flora.-The fifteenth report of the State Geologist of Indiana, issued in March of the present year, contains a long article on the "Origin of the Indiana Flora," by John M. Coulter and Harvey Thompson. The second part of the article, beginning on page 265, is on the Origin of the North American Flora." It is so similar in many respects to an article published by myself in the Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History in 1881, vol. iv., that I desire to call attention to it. I have arranged in parallel columns the parallel passages. The pages are those on which the similar passages are found. My article is entitled "On the Geographical Distribution of Plants Common to Europe and the Northeast United States."

Coulter and Thompson.

"In studying the flora of North America one cannot help being impressed with the fact of the identity of many of our genera, and even species, with those of Europe, and especially of Eastern Asia. In the number of identical species there seems to be a closer resemblance between the floras of Eastern United States and Eastern Asia than between the floras of the Eastern United States and the Pacific slope." P. 265.

"In addition to these 342 distinct species, [referring to a printed list which contains only 328 names] there are in our flora many varieties which are indigenous to Europe, and in Europe varieties very close to some in this country. Also there are many species in this country so very near European forms that no doubt they will eventually be considered the same species, or at least varieties. Indeed, Joseph F. James supposes that one-third of the species found in Gray's Manual resemble forms in Europe. When we take into consideration the fact that the Manual covers only a very small portion of North America, it is a natural inference that when the whole flora of North America is compared with that of Europe, there will be found many other species common to both." P. 269.

"It would be easy to account for this wide distribution of species if there were not so many facts to disprove the theory advanced by Meyen in 1846, that there is indeed nothing more easy to perceive, in the distribution of organic beings over the globe, than the universal law, that

James.

"Prof. Gray has made it well known that there is far more resemblance between the plants of the Atlantic coast of the United States and the Pacific coast of Asia than between the latter and the Pacific coast of America, especially of California." P. 67.

"The resemblance between the floras of Europe and the United States is by no means confined to the 360 identical species [given in several lists]. There are, besides, many closely related species, some of which may be reduced to geographical varieties. If to the identical species we add these related and representative species, we shall find that one-third of the 2277 indigenous species given in Gray's Manual resemble European forms. But the similarity between the floras of North America and Europe is by no means confined to the small territory with which I have been dealing [the Northeastern United States]. . I have no doubt but that a comparison of the entire flora of the United States (excluding the semi-tropical one of California. . .) will show nearly as much resemblance as I have shown exists in the small territory here dealt with." P. 66. Scarcely any one now believes in the assertion of an eminent authority,* that there is indeed nothing more easy to perceive, in the distribution of organic beings over the globe,' ," etc., etc. P. 51.

"Meyen, Geog. of Plants. Roy. Society, 1846, p. 265."

Pub. of