Next _Astrapotherium_ may be provisionally placed the genus _Homalodontotherium_, of which the teeth have much lower crowns, and are of a less decidedly rhinocerotic type than in _Astrapotherium_, and the whole dentition forms an even and unbroken series. The bodies of the cervical vertebrae are short, with flattened articular surfaces, the humerus has an enormous deltoid crest, suggestive of fossorial powers, and the femur is flattened, with a third trochanter. According to the Argentine palaeontologists, the carpus is of the alternating type, and the terminal phalanges of the pentedactyle feet are bifid, and very like those of Edentata. Indeed, this type of foot shows many edentate resemblances. The astragalus is square and flattened, articulating directly with the navicular, although not with the cuboid, and having a slightly convex facet for the tibia. From the structure of the above-mentioned type of foot, which is stated to have been found in association with the skull, it has been suggested that _Homalodontotherium_ should be placed in the _Ancylopoda_ (q.v.), but, to say nothing of the different form of the cheek-teeth, all the other South American Santa Cruz ungulates are so distinct from those of other countries that this seems unlikely. It may be suggested that we have rather to deal with an instance of parallelism--a view supported by the parallelism to the _Equidae_ presented by certain members of the _Proterotheriidae_. (R. L.*) LITOTES (Gr. [Greek: litotês], plainness, [Greek: litos], plain, simple, smooth), a rhetorical figure in which emphasis is secured for a statement by turning it into a denial of the contrary, e.g. "a citizen of no mean city," i.e. a citizen of a famous city, "A. is not a man to be neglected." Litotes is sometimes used for what should be more strictly called "meiosis" (Gr. [Greek: meiôsis], lessening, diminution, [Greek: meiôn], lesser), where the expressions used apparently are weak or understated, but the effect is to intensify.