134 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 



was not particularly mild; the animals were 

 simply adapted to it ; instead of being naked 

 like their modern relatives, they were dressed 

 for the climate in a woolly covering. We 

 think of the tiger as prowling through the 

 jungles of India, but he ranges so far north 

 that in some localities this beast preys upon 

 reindeer, which are among the most northern 

 of large mammals, and there the tiger is clad 

 in fairly thick fur. 



When we come to coloring a reconstructed 

 animal we have absolutely no guide, unless we 

 assume that the larger a creature the more so- 

 berly will it be colored. The great land ani- 

 mals of to-day, the elephant and rhinoceros, to 

 say nothing of the aquatic hippopotamus, are 

 very dully colored, and while this sombre col- 

 oration is to-day a protection, rendering these 

 animals less easily seen by man than they 

 otherwise would be, yet at the time this color 

 was developing man was not nor were there 

 enemies sufficiently formidable to menace the 

 race of elephantine creatures. 



For where mere size furnishes sufficient pro- 

 tection one would hardly expect to find pro- 



