THE AGE OF MAMMALS 



ancestors. Others, like kingfishers, flitted over the 

 streams; and the emu, ostrich, and moa, as well as 

 the albatross, find their earliest representatives in the 

 Eocene times. 



It is impossible for us to follow, or even to enumerate, 

 all the varied ancestral lines which sprang up, some of 

 them already vigorous, in the early Tertiary times, and 

 which developed so mightily in the successive ages. We 

 can only trace the careers of a few such as are better and 

 more popularly known, while admitting that there 

 are many others equally interesting from a scientific or 

 from any other point of view. From a geologist's point 

 of view the most important, perhaps, of all the mammal 

 developments was that of the elephant. The first 

 mammal which geologists discovered that was like the 

 elephant was the Mastodon, the American variety of 

 which is called Tetrabelodon. But this Mastodon had no 

 proper trunk as has the elephant. Instead of that he 

 had a very long upper lip which apparently rested on his 

 projecting upper tusks. Mr. Kipling once suggested that 

 the elephant's trunk was originally formed by an accident 

 an unfortunate young elephant before the days of 

 trunks having stopped to drink at a pool, and his nose 

 being seized by a crocodile, who pulled and pulled till 

 the nose lengthened out a trunk. There certainly was 

 some reason for the elephant's trunk, which has de- 

 veloped, we do not quite know how, from a long nose. 

 But a great deal has been found out about the early de- 

 velopment of the elephant by Dr. Andrews of the British 

 Museum. 



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