!i 4 8 THE UNGULATES, OR HOOFED MAMMALS 



Although the uintatheres have only been known to science for rather more 

 than twenty years, their skulls and bones long ago attracted the attention of the 

 wandering Indians, and such squatters and trappers whose business led them into 

 the district known as the "Bad Lands." On returning to civilization, these pio- 

 neers brought news of the skeletons of marvelous monsters staring at them from the 

 rock-bound canons; and at length these attracted the attention of the late Professor 

 Leidy, to whom belongs the honor of having made known these strange creatures to 

 a wondering world. Describing the region where these remains occur, Professor 

 Marsh writes that bare, treeless wastes of naked stone rise here and there into ter- 

 raced ledges and strange tower-like prominences, or sink into hollows where the 

 water gathers in salt or bitter pools. Under the cloudless sky, and in the clear, dry 

 atmosphere, the extraordinary coloring of the rocks form, perhaps, the most strik- 

 ing feature of the weird landscape. 



THE MACRAUCHENIA AND ITS ALLIES 

 SUBORDER Litopterna 



South America was the home of numerous extinct Ungulates, quite unlike those 

 found in any other part of the world, and which, while allied in some respects to 

 the Old-Toed group, appear to represent three distinct suborders. Among these, 

 not the least remarkable was the so-called Macrauchenia, the typical representative 

 of the suborder L/itopterna. The members of this group are characterized by having 

 cheek-teeth approximating in structure to those of the European palseotheres 

 (p. 1104), the upper molars having their outer wall divided into two distinct lobes. 

 Although the long toes were arranged in the same manner as in the Odd-Toed group 

 of Ungulates, and were never more than three in number, the structure of both the 

 wrist and ankle joints were different. Thus, in place of the component bones of 

 these joints alternating with one another, they were arranged directly one above 

 another, after the so-called linear type characterizing the modern elephants (see p. 

 1117). The huckle bone, or astragalus, of the ankle resembles that of the Odd-Toed 

 group in being grooved superiorly; but the heel bone, or calcaneum, differed in hav- 

 ing a small surface for the articulation of the fibula, or smaller bone of the leg, as in 

 the Even-Toed group. The long vertebrae of the neck, although showing the same 

 flat terminal ends characterizing the allied extinct South-American groups, are 

 peculiar in regard to the position of the canal for the great artery of the neck, and 

 in this respect agree with the camels and llamas alone among living Ungulates. 

 The thigh bone, or femur, has a small third trochanter representing the larger one 

 characteristic of the Odd-Toed group. In build, the members of the present group 

 were tall, slender Ungulates, with long legs, feet and neck; and thus very different 

 in appearance from the under-mentioned toxodonts, which were short-limbed, short- 

 necked, and heavily-built creatures. 



The Litopterna are divisible into two families, of which the first (Macrau- 

 cheniida) is represented by the macrauchenia and certain allied forms, and is char- 

 acterized by the presence of forty-four teeth, forming an uninterrupted series in the 



