EXTINCT ANIMALS 



to Europe, dug out of the sands of Florida. 

 It was thought to belong to a reptile like 

 the crocodile, and was called Basilosaurus. 

 But the naturaUst in whose care it was, on 

 showing the specimen to a friend (Herman 

 von Meyer) dropped it on the stone floor of 

 his museum and cracked the back of the 

 skull. The crack exposed the spiral cavity or 

 cochlea of the ear, and thus it was shown that 

 the specimen was the skull of a mammal. Sure 

 enough, it turned out later to be the skull of a 

 kind of whale (Zeuglodon). 



Teeth are of great help and importance in 

 determining the sort of animal to which a 

 fragment belongs. 



Fig. 50 is a photograph from a specimen 

 prepared in the Natural History Museum. The 

 wild boar or pig occupies in regard to teeth a 

 sort of central position among mammals (hairy 

 warm-blooded quadrupeds). Its teeth are 

 such that to them you can refer, as to a standard 

 pattern, the teeth of all other mammals. There 

 are three middle teeth in front in the upper and 

 lower jaw, chisel^Hke teeth, the incisors. Be- 

 yond these are the great canine teeth : then 

 the cheek teeth follow. These are seven in 



76 



