206 AMBLYPODA—_DINOCERAS AND ITS ALLIES CHAP. 
in the carpus are alternating in position. The toes are five in 
both feet, and are very short. There is a hint of commencing 
“ pyerissodactylism” in the fore-feet at any rate. The brain is 
small and the hemispheres smooth. 
The Amblypoda, or Amblydactyla, are so called on account of 
their short and stumpy feet and toes. They were held by Pro- 
fessor Cope to be on the direct line of ancestry of both Perisso- 
dactyles and Artiodactyles, a view which is on the whole not 
accepted at present. 
As is the case with other groups, the Amblypoda commenced 
existence as a sub-order with relatively small forms such as 
oT ee oe 
le 
Fic. 114.—Skull of Protolambda bathmodon. x. e.a.m, External auditory meatus ; 
m, mastoid ; m.f, mastoid foramen. (After Osborn. ) 
Pantolambda, the most ancient type known, which is in many 
respects a transition between the later forms and other groups of 
mammals such as the Creodonta.". The race culminated and 
ended in the giant Dinoceras and Coryphodon, and spread into the 
Old World. In spite of their smooth and diminutive brain, these 
mammals were able to hold their own and to multiply into many 
species and genera; in this they were perhaps aided by their 
formidable tusks and by the horns which many of them possessed. 
The teeth seem to imply an omnivorous diet, which was quite 
possibly an additional advantage in the struggle for existence. 
It does not seem to be necessary to divide off the Dinoceratidae 
into a sub-order equivalent to the Coryphodontidae as was done 
! Or perhaps rather to the primitive Ungulates Condylarthra. It is especially 
compared with Periptychus of that group. 
