THE ANOPLOTHERIUM. 



103 



appear to have occupied an intermediate station between 

 these two great orders : tiieir heads, judging from the 

 skull, partook of the form of that of the horse and of 

 the camel ; the snout was not elongated into a proboscis 

 ias in the tapir or the elephant. The Anoplotheria are 

 divided into three subgenera, on various minor details 

 of structure. The restricted division Anoplotherium 

 i*roper comprehends two species, viz. A. commune 

 (Fig. 61), about the size of the ass, and the A. secun- 

 karium, about the size of the hog. These animals were 

 low on the limbs, and probably resembled the tapirs in 

 their habits, but were furnished with a long tail com- 

 pressed horizontally at the base, and rendering them 

 jnore essentially aquatic : they resorted to lakes and 

 marshes in search of aquatic plants, and, as the flattened 

 form of the tail indicates, must have swum and dived 

 with greater ease than either the hippopotamus or tapir. 



62 . — Anoploth enum , 



The subgenus Ziphodon contains but a single species 

 {A. gracile: Fig. 62), a light, slender, graceful crea- 

 ture, with much of the contour of the gazelle: it was 

 f)robably fleet and active, and was confined to the dry 

 and, where it fed like the deer. The tail was short, 

 and in this respect and in its general figure, as the 



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