A FEW OF DARWIN'S FACTS 47 



comparatively small the tapir, the deer, the monkey, etc. 

 Darwin says that ten specimens of the largest kinds weigh 

 an average of but 250 pounds apiece. It is interesting to 

 compare the size of these animals with the size of those in 

 South Africa. There the elephant, the hippopotamus, the 

 giraffe, eland, rhinoceros, and others are so large that ten 

 members of the large kinds of animals weigh an average 

 of 6040 pounds apiece. 



The strange fact about all this is that ages ago South 

 American animals were quite as large as the present-day 

 monsters of South Africa. Darwin says that at the very time 

 when the animals of South America were becoming extinct, 

 those of South Africa stayed alive through their descendants. 



Another set of Darwin's facts had to do with the horse. 

 History tells us that when Columbus and his Spaniards came 

 to America, not a horse was to be found in the land. They 

 were, in fact, so unknown and unheard-of that when, years 

 afterwards, a few were brought over from Europe, the native 

 Indians looked at them with curiosity and fright. Im- 

 agine, then, the surprise of Darwin and other naturalists when 

 they found fossil horse bones in different places from the 

 northern extremity of North America to the southern ex- 

 tremity of South America. Clearly enough, horses were 

 among the oldest inhabitants of the land ; yet, quite as clearly, 

 not one had survived to receive Columbus. All had died and 

 vanished from sight long before man arrived in modern times. 



Now it is interesting to know that while the largest early 

 animals were dying off in South America they were also 

 meeting the same fate everywhere else in the world except 

 in Africa. The following statements bear on this point. 



I . Fossil remains which have been found in Europe, Asia, 

 North America, and South America prove that ages ago 



