resembled the living tapir in the shape of the head, although it differed in other respects. This animal also lived in Eocene times.
This remarkable man, of a rigidly demonstrative turn of mind, when quite young set himself the task of investigating "the unknown" in zoology and palæontology by means of anatomical research. Linnæus and Buffon had described "the exterior"; Cuvier studied "the interior," and found intimate relation between them. Genius directed his studies, and (like Lavoisier in chemistry) he founded a new era in natural history.
Whilst pursuing his researches on the anatomy of the invertebrata, he soon saw that the animal forms he dissected differed from the fossil forms which lay around him. Palissy and Buffon (in different ages) had noticed the same, and were declared to be dreamers; but Cuvier in his Ossemens Fossiles proved that they were so. His work in this line established the laws of geology and palæontology, and upset many of the fanciful theories of earlier times. As a skilled draughtsman he drew pictures of the ancient fauna of the world's history; and even from a bone, or part of a bone, he ventured to restore the form of a fossil animal—simply from the correlation of parts.
In his last great work, the Histoire Naturelle des Poissons, he described 5000 species of fishes—their affinities, anatomy, and ancient and modern nomenclature.
