“But important as a knowledge of the presence of a milk-dentition in _Orycteropus_ is, it does not at present render any easier the difficult questions as to the phylogeny and systematic position of that animal. Although called an Edentate, it has always been recognised as possessing many characters exceedingly different from those of the typical American members of the order. It has in fact been placed with them rather on account of the inconvenience of forming a special order for its reception than because of its real relationship to them. Now, as they are either altogether toothless, or else homodont and monophyodont (apart from the remarkable exception of _Tatusia_), it seems more than ever incorrect to unite with them the solitary member of the Tubulidentata, toothed, heterodont, and diphyodont, and differing from them in addition by its placentation, the anatomy of its reproductive organs, the minute structure of its teeth, and the general characters of its skeleton. “But if _Orycteropus_ is not genetically a near relation of the Edentates, we are wholly in the dark as to what other mammals it is allied to, and I think it would be premature to hazard a guess on the subject. Whether even it has any special connection with _Manis_ is a point about which there is the greatest doubt, and unfortunately we are as yet absolutely without any palæontological knowledge of the extinct allies of either. _Macrotherium_ even, usually supposed from the structure of its phalangeal bones, to be related to _Manis_, has lately proved to have the teeth and vertebræ of a perissodactyle Ungulate, and one could not dare to suggest that ancestors of _Manis_, or _Orycteropus_ were to be sought in that direction. Lastly, as the numerous fossil American Edentates do not show the slightest tendency to an approximation towards the Old World forms, we are furnished with an additional reason for insisting on the radical distinctness of the latter, whose phylogeny must therefore for the present remain one of the many unsolved zoological problems.” The Aard-Varks (Earth-Pigs) as these creatures are commonly termed, from the name bestowed on them by the Dutch Boers of the Cape, are of nocturnal habits, sleeping during the day in their burrows, which are usually found in the neighbourhood of the tall hills or mounds made by termites. Indeed, wherever these hills are abundant it is stated there is a good chance of finding an Aard-Vark, the food of these animals consisting almost exclusively of termites and ants. Two existing species are recognised, namely the Cape Aard-Vark (_O. afra_) from South Africa, and another (_O. æthiopicus_) from the north-eastern parts of Africa, ranging into Egypt. An extinct species has been described from the Lower Pliocene of the Isle of Samos, in the Turkish Archipelago, differing from the existing forms by the larger proportionate size of the lateral metatarsals.