16 

 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8th, 1896. 



"AN ARRANGEMENT IN HORNS AND 

 HOOFS." 



MISS AGNES CRANE. 



AND 



"AN INDIAN PUZZLE." 



MR. J. LEWIS, F.S.A. 



It is related of the great Cuvier that in his student days, 

 pursuing his studies late at night, he was suddenly interrupted 

 by the appearance of the nameless one " in his habit as he lived," 

 i.e., with horns and hoofs, who said he had come to devour him. 

 The philosophic student calmly scrutinized his strange visitor 

 and then ejaculated, " Horns, and " — with a downward glance — 

 " cloven hoofs, humph ! a harmless grass-eating animal ! " 

 Having duly classified among the Bovid^e, the terrible appari- 

 tion, Cuvier presumed his investigations, much to the discom- 

 fiture of his masquerading fellow students who had hoped to 

 raise a laugh against their more industrious comrade. 



The great group of Ungulata, " animals with hoofs," is sub- 

 divided into the " odd-toed " ungulates [perissodactyla) , or those, 

 for instance, such as the elephant, rhinoceros, and horse, having 

 five, three, or one toe on each fore-foot, and the " even-toed " 

 {artiodactyla) , which have an equal number of toes, two or four, 

 like the cloven-hoofed pigs, hippopotami, camels, deer, oxen, and 

 sheep. Some of these even-toed cloven-hoofs chew the cud, and 

 these ruminants are, therefore, again separable from the non- 

 ruminantia. There was evidently a time in the chequered history 

 of the hoofed mammals when " To ruminate or not to ruminate, 

 that was the question " ; and it is impossible to determine 

 absolutely to which group some of the earlier fossil forms should 

 be referred. For this depends on a physiological character. The 

 proverbial Alderman might well envy the digestive capacities 

 of the ruminants ; they have never less than three, and generally 

 four, stomachs. It is to the oldest type, the "odd-toed," or 



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