24 ANCESTORS OF MAMMALS 



this and are caught and entombed. Untold ages afterward 

 the hardened skeletons may be washed out of the disinte- 

 grating rock, long after the river has disappeared. 



Crossing to the Old World, we shall find in India a re- 

 markable animal called the Sivatheriiun giganteuni, a 

 seeming connecting link between the giraffe and the an- 

 telope, resembling somewhat a giant moose. It had a 

 short proboscis, the teeth of a giraffe, and four horns 

 instead of two, which resembled those of an antelope. 

 Its jaw was enormous, being twice the size of that of a 

 bison. What is known as the Irish Elk is one of the 

 splendid ancestors of the present stag or deer ^ — an ani- 

 mal that, in all probability, was hunted by early man. 

 The skeleton of one of these stags can be seen in the 

 American Museum of Natural History, New York, and 

 presents a commanding, indeed noble, appearance. To 

 the summit of the royal antlers it is ten feet four inches ; 

 the span of the antlers is eight feet — twice that of the 

 living moose ; the weight of head and antlers is from 

 seventy-six to ninety pounds. 



The remains of this fine deer were discovered in caves, 

 and in shell marls, and under peat beds. In one ancient 

 Irish lake about one hundred heads and six complete 

 skeletons have been found, showing that the big deer 

 swam or walked in, and doubtless became bogged ; or the 

 heads may have been cut off and thrown away by the early 

 hunters, and the bodies cut up and carried off. 



One of the most interesting of the early mammals was 

 the wooiy rhinoceros, contemporaneous with the mam- 

 moth ; it was a giant covered with wool, and provided with 

 two enormous horns. Among the elephantine animals of 



