EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



as the anchitherium, the ancestor of the horse, 

 in general aspect somewhere between a Shet- 

 land pony and a pig, and with three separate 

 hoofs on each foot. There were also the anoplo- 

 theria, or common ancestral forms of antelopes 

 and deer, as yet without horns or antlers. The 

 highest order of mammals, the Primates, in- 

 cluding man, ape, and lemur, was then re- 

 presented by the adapts of the Paris basin, the 

 necrolemur of southern France, and the ccenopith- 

 ecus of Switzerland. Now none of these Eocene 

 primates answered to any living genus of lemur, 

 though the lemurs are the least specialized of 

 primates now existing ; but all these Eocene 

 primates showed signs of relationship, in one 

 way or another, to the hoofed quadrupeds living 

 at that time, which, as we must not forget, were 

 only on the way toward becoming hoofed quad- 

 rupeds such as we know. Cousinship, however 

 remote, between such extremely specialized 

 creatures as the horse and his rider seems odd 

 to think of; yet the lemuroids of the Eocene 

 furnish the link. And it is interesting to re- 

 member that, owing to the closeness of relation- 

 ship, the lemuroid adapts was actually mistaken 

 by Cuvier for an anoplotherium y or primitive 

 antelope-deer. Of all anatomical contrasts, 

 what can be greater than the contrast between a 

 solid hoof and the flexible five-fingered hand 

 of a Rubinstein ? Yet the Eocene great-uncle 

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