which he had never seen before, and which had been dead and
buried for millions of years, would be verified, that he went to
work upon the slab which contained the pelvis in confident
expectation of finding and laying bare the "marsupial bones," to
the satisfaction of some persons whom he had invited to witness
their disinterment. As he says:--"Cette operation se fit en
presence de quelques personnes a qui j'en avais annonce d'avance
le resultat, dans l'intention de leur prouver par le fait la
justice de nos theories zoologiques; puisque le vrai cachet
d'une theorie est sans contredit la faculte qu'elle donne de
prevoir les phenomenes."

In the "Ossemens Fossiles" Cuvier leaves his paper just as it
first appeared in the "Annales du Museum," as "a curious
monument of the force of zoological laws and of the use which
may be made of them."

Zoological laws truly, but not physiological laws. If one sees a
live dog's head, it is extremely probable that a dog's tail is
not far off, though nobody can say why that sort of head and
that sort of tail go together; what physiological connection
there is between the two. So, in the case of the Montmartre
fossil, Cuvier, finding a thorough opossum's head, concluded
that the pelvis also would be like an opossum's. But, most
assuredly, the most advanced physiologist of the present day
could throw no light on the question why these are associated,
nor could pretend to affirm that the existence of the one is
necessarily connected with that of the other. In fact, had it so
happened that the pelvis of the fossil had been originally
exposed, while the head lay hidden, the presence of the