8 FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



these giant extinct reptiles had very long tails and necks, 

 which the elephant cannot boast. No extinct animal is 

 known which approaches in bulk the great whales of 

 various kinds at present inhabiting the sea. The strik- 

 ing thing about many huge extinct animals is that they 

 are represented to-day by similarly constructed animals 

 of much smaller size. Thus w r e know giant extinct 

 sloths, which contrast strangely with the small living 

 sloths of to-day, giant extinct rat-like animals and giant 

 extinct kangaroos far exceeding the bulk of living rats 

 and kangaroos. But it is distinctly not true that all 

 recent animals are degenerate and small as compared 

 with extinct related kinds. The modern horse is far 

 larger than its extinct ancestors, which we can trace 

 back in a gradual diminishing series to a little beast 

 no bigger than a spaniel. So, too, the earliest elephants 

 known are quite small creatures. 



The interesting point about extinct animals is really 

 not so much that they were often large of their kind, 

 but that they are often of kinds quite unknown at the 

 present day among living animals. On the other hand 

 sometimes (but by no means always) they can be shown 

 to be connected as ancestors to living animals by a 

 series of intermediate forms. The remains of the con- 

 necting forms are found embedded in successive rock- 

 strata, intermediate in age between the present day and 

 the remote period when the earliest members of the 

 series were alive and flourishing and we can follow 

 out in many instances (for example, in the pedigree of 

 the horse, and again of the elephant) the gradual but 

 very extensive changes by which the descendants of a 

 long extinct kind of animal have been " transformed " 

 into modern recent animals, familiar to us. 



