448 LAND MAMMALS IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE 



and most other very heavy mammals. The bones of the fore- 

 arm and lower leg were separate. The hip- and thigh-bones 

 and shin-bones were remarkably elephantine in character and, 

 if found isolated, might readily be referred to some unknown 

 proboscidean, but the bones of the fore limb were quite different 

 from those of the elephants. The feet likewise had a very 

 proboscidean appearance, notwithstanding important and 

 significant deviations in structure ; they had the same short- 

 ness and massiveness and a similar reduction in the size of 

 the hoofs, and the presence of all five digits added to the resem- 

 blance. Undoubtedly, the feet had the same columnar shape 

 and arrangement of elastic pads. The living animal must 

 have had an appearance quite similar to that of a rather small 

 elephant, not exceeding six or seven feet in height at the 

 shoulders and therefore not surpassing the largest modern 

 rhinoceroses, the broad-lipped species of Africa (Opsiceros 

 simus). Of course, the head must be excepted from the com- 

 parison, as that was totally unlike the head of any existing 

 creature ; with its long and narrow shape, its fantastic pro- 

 tuberances and its lack of a proboscis, it had no suggestion of 

 likeness to any proboscidean. Whether the great body was 

 naked, or clothed with hair, it is of course impossible to deter- 

 mine with confidence, but, all things considered, it seems un- 

 likely that the hair should have been completely lost in any 

 terrestrial mammal at so early a period. As we have seen in 

 the preceding chapters, hairy elephants and rhinoceroses con- 

 tinued into and through the Pleistocene, not only in the cold 

 regions of the north, as is shown by the hair of the American 

 fMastodon. In the tropics conditions were different, and in 

 that uniformly warm climate the loss of hair by the very large 

 mammals probably took place long before the Pleistocene. 

 At all events, it is a significant fact that no hairless land 

 mammals are now known in any region which has severe 

 winters. It is true that the middle Eocene climate over most 

 of North America was warm-temperate or subtropical, and 



