58 THE MAMMALIA. 



the giraffe towered above all of the Kuminants. 

 And Ancylotherium also one of the Edentata 

 was a creature of considerable size with bent toes. 

 The most gigantic of all the animals, however, was 

 the Dinotherium. What a magnificent sight it 

 must have been to see it marching about, accom- 

 panied by two species of mastodon ! In those 

 plains was heard the roaring of the frightful 

 Machairodus with its sabre-shaped canine teeth ; 

 and many other species associated with those 

 named above. Their cries were intermingled with 

 the songs of birds, and in the concert raised by 

 all these creatures the voice of man alone was 

 wanting. 



1 Nowhere does the earth now present a similar 

 scene, as we may be convinced by a glance at our 

 present fauna. In the virgin primeval forests of 

 America, where plant life is met with in the full 

 majesty of development, we might expect to find an 

 equally full development of animal life. But the 

 four-footed animals are less powerfully developed 

 there than in the Old World, and are even less so in 

 Australia. In Europe and Central Asia they have 

 decreased in numbers by having been hemmed in 

 between the civilisation of the temperate zones and 

 the ice of the north. The largest mammals of the 



