28 THE HOUSE. 



In the year 1839, Sir Richard Owen described an 

 imperfect skull of a small animal, not larger than a 

 fox, which was discovered in the London Clay (Lower 

 Eocene) of Heme Bay, in Kent, under the name of 

 HyracotJierium, a name implying a supposed affinity 

 (which we now know it does not possess) to the exist- 

 ing genus, Hyrax* Specimens of identical or similar 

 forms were subsequently found in Eocene formations 

 in England and other parts of Europe, and others re- 

 ferred to the same genus far more abundantly and in 

 a far more perfect state of preservation in beds of 

 corresponding age in North America. To a closely 

 allied form the name of Paeliynoloplius has been 

 given, while Plioloplius and OroMppus are probably 

 identical, and they are all so nearly related to a pre- 

 viously known but larger animal, called by Cuvier 

 Lophiodon, that they are commonly associated to 



* " Hyrax " (a Greek word for an animal which cannot be 

 identified with certainty, perhaps a kind of shrew) is a name 

 given by modern zoologists to a small group, consisting of 

 about a dozen species, of animals inhabiting the rocky dis- 

 tricts of Syria and various parts of Africa, and which are of 

 such peculiar structure that they are completely separated 

 from all the existing and all the hitherto discovered extinct 

 forms of life. They form the order Hyracoidea of Huxley, 

 but may be included in the Ungulata, using that term in the 

 very widest sense. They are the animals whose Hebrew name 

 is translated in the English Bible into " coney " or rabbit, to 

 which in size, color, and habit they bear a considerable gen- 

 eral resemblance. 



