^^^1 THE NEW EVOLUTION T"^^ 



In the Eocene there lived a curious little creature 

 no bigger than a fox called the "dawn horse" — 

 Eohippus — which had four toes on the front and three 

 on the hind feet and a relatively short head with the 

 eyes about half way between the ears and the tip of 

 the nose instead of nearer the ears than the tip of the 

 nose as in the later horses. In the same epoch, 

 though somewhat later, there was an abundance of 

 very similar little creatures. 



Following these there were a number of different 

 kinds of horses all of which had three toes and, like 

 the "dawn horse," low crowned teeth which were 

 affixed to the jaw by means of roots. 



Still later there were horses which as colts had low 

 crowned teeth, but when fully grown had teeth with 

 fairly high crowns. With these lived others in which 

 the teeth had high crowns at all ages. These horses 

 had shorter muzzles and rather less deep jaws than 

 the modern horses, and while they had a single hoof, 

 there was a toe on either side of it. These lateral 

 toes varied from small ones which did not reach the 

 ground to larger ones which reached the ground. 



In the Pleistocene or Ice Age — in the epoch just 

 before the present — there were very many different 

 kinds of horses which were all of the modern type 

 and inhabited all the continents with the exception 

 of Australia. 



So we see a well marked and distinct evolutionary 

 line beginning with the little four-toed horses in the 

 Eocene and culminating in the large single-toed horses 

 of the present day. 



