104 SOME HOOFED ANIMALS 



inoffensive. They easily fall victims to the great cats, the 

 jaguar and cougar, of South America. The South Ameri- 

 can tapir has a wide range over the continent. It is a 

 good swimmer, readily taking to the water when fol- 

 lowed. Two species of tapirs have been found in Central 

 America. 



The tapir of the Indian Archipelago is about eight feet 

 in length and forty inches high at the shoulder, a very 

 striking creature, due to the stripe of white down the 

 middle section of the body like a gigantic saddle. The 

 young number one at birth. The tapirs come of a long 

 line of ancient and singular animals which roamed the 

 earth millions of years ago. An extinct species, the 

 paleotherium, found in the Paris Basin, was a three-hoofed 

 animal, possibly related to the horses. 



Of all animals, the horse is best known to man. The 

 ancestors of the present animal, according to our geolo- 

 gists, were horselike creatures from which have descended 

 not only the horse, but the zebra, the quagga, and the 

 donkey. In the museums, collections may be seen of the 

 bones of these ancestral horses, some being no larger than 

 foxes. 



The first horse was the eohippus, with four front toes 

 and a splint. Then followed the orohippus ; then the 

 mesohippus, with three toes and a splint; and, in the 

 upper miocene time the miohippus, with three front toes. 

 After these came the protohippus, with feet having one 

 large and two small toes, to be followed in the upper 

 pliocene by the pHohippus, in which there is but one big 

 toe and two splints, as in the modern horse. The hippa- 

 rion represented a similar form in Europe. Finally came 



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