XXI. On the structure of the dental tissues of marsupial animals, and more especially of the enamel

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Abstract
My Dear Dr. Grant, On making microscopic examinations of the teeth of one or more species of the several families of the marsupial animals, the skulls of which you kindly placed at my disposal, I found some peculiarities of structure, which so far as I know have not hitherto been recognised, and which will I think be found to constitute a pretty constant character in the teeth of this order of quadrupeds. It is my present purpose to describe these peculiarities, and should the communication seem sufficiently interesting and important to engage the attention of the Royal Society, my debt of gratitude, already great, will be rendered yet greater by your lending your name for its presentation. Professor Owen, in his Odontography (p. 397), when treating on the structure of the marsupial teeth, says, “The dentine, enamel, and cement of the teeth of marsupial animals, present the usual microscopic characters of these tissues in Mammalia.” My researches have led me to a different conclusion. The enamel presents a very strongly-marked peculiarity, common (so far as I have examined), with one exception only, to all marsupial teeth, and present only in a very limited number of other mammalian teeth. I have hitherto found it only in the British Shrews, the Hyrax, and in the molar teeth of the Jerboa.

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