404 LAND MAMMALS IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE 



One of the phyla which persisted into the lower Miocene was 

 there represented by a most fantastic creature {^Syndyoceras) 

 with four horn-like outgrowths from the skull, one pair arising 

 from the anterior part of the face and curving outward away 

 from each other, and the hinder pair, which were placed over 

 the eyes, curved toward each other at the tips and were shaped 

 much like a cow's horns in miniature. The shape of these 

 bony protuberances makes it unlikely that they were sheathed 

 in horn and probably they were merely covered with skin like 

 the horns of the giraffes. This description apphes only to the 

 skull of the male ; that of the female is not yet known, but there 

 is good reason to believe that in that sex the horns were much 

 smaller or wanting, as in nearly all existing deer. The skull was 

 long, narrow and low ; the orbits were small, completely en- 

 closed in bone and unusually prominent ; the nasal bones were 

 exceedingly short, as though indicating the existence of a 

 proboscis, but this can hardly have been the case, for the nasal 

 opening was divided into anterior and posterior portions by 

 the bony bridge which united the bases of the forward pair of 

 horns. In no other known mammal does such a division of the 

 nasal opening occur. The upper incisors had all disappeared, 

 but there was a small upper canine tusk and another formed by 

 the first lower premolar, while the real lower canine had gone 

 over to the incisor series. This exceptional arrangement is a 

 point of resemblance to the foreodonts (see p. 372). The 

 grinding teeth were brachyodont. The fore limb is not known, 

 but the hind limb has been completely recovered ; it was stout 

 and not very long in proportion to the length of the head. 

 The fibula was completely reduced, only the ends remain- 

 ing, and the pes was didactyl, the two metatarsals uniting 

 in a cannon-bone ; the hoofs were like those of deer and 

 antelopes. 



No representative of this series has yet been found in the 

 upper Oligocene ; and it is not yet possible to say whether their 

 absence from the John Day beds, as in several other cases 



