192 TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE 



beasts," that is, beasts the number of whose hind toes, 

 made use of in locomotion, is either one, as in the horse, 

 or three, as in the rhinoceros and the tapirs. 



( Horse, ass, &c. 



J Odd-toed - Rhinoceroses 

 I Tapirs 

 ' .- 



Ungulates ; / Hippopotamus 



( Non-ruminating J Swine 

 ' Even-toed J ( Peccaries 



{ Ruminating 



Thus we see that hoofed beasts, or ungulates, may be 

 odd- or even- toed, that the even-toed may be ruminating 

 or non-ruminating, and that the ruminating may be 

 allied to camels, chevrotains, giraffes, deer, or hollow- 

 horned cattle, and the bison is an exceptional form of 

 the hollow-horned portion of the ruminating even-toed 

 hoofed beasts. 



What relation, then, do hoofed beasts as a whole bear 

 to all other beasts ? 



By understanding the answer to this question we shall 

 come sufficiently to comprehend what a bison really is. 

 We will begin by adverting to existing animals only, 

 since if, as the most popular theory of evolution teaches, 

 all existing kinds have been evolved, by minute modi- 

 fications, from pre-existing kinds, then, if we could know 

 the whole, we should be unable to draw any funda- 

 mental distinctions at all between any groups of animals 

 whatever, which would form an immense mass melting 

 into each other by insensible gradations. Now, of the 

 existing orders of mammals there are very few which show 

 any affinity to the hoofed beasts, or ungulates. Certainly 

 we can find no evidence of it among existing apes, lemurs, 

 bats, insect-eaters, flesh-eaters, rodents or whales. The 

 kangaroos among marsupials have been supposed to bear 



