32 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. n. 



been the ancestors of the horse. They were about the 

 size of Shetland ponies, and possessed three distinct 

 hoofs on each foot, reaching to the ground. The forests 

 also sheltered numerous hog -like animals, such as the 

 Cheer opotamus, intermediate between the swine and the 

 hippopotamus, and the Microchcerus and Hyopotamus. 

 Generalised, or rather, as they may with more justice 

 be termed, ancestral forms of the deer and antelopes, 

 hornless and without antlers (Anoplotherium, Dichodon, 

 Dichobune) browsed on the luxuriant herbage in the 

 glades. Overhead on the trees there were opossums, 

 while in the undergrowth lurked the Theridomys, a 

 creature allied to the small spiny rats (Echimys) of 

 Brazil. There were also beasts of prey, one the Hyceno- 

 don, or precursor of the hyaena, a carnivore, which to 

 the ordinary characters of a placental mammal united 

 the marsupial attribute of three sectorial mokrs in each 

 jaw, arranged as in the marsupial Thylacinus or Tas- 

 manian wolf, which it rivalled in size. 



Upper Eocene Mammalia of the Continent. 



The same group of animals lived on the borders of 

 the lake occupying the site of Paris in the upper Eocene 

 times, and the species associated with them enable us 

 to complete our picture. There were small deer-like 

 animals, the Kainothere and the Amphitragulus, closely 

 allied in size and form to the musk-deer, as well as the 

 Xiphodon (Fig. 5), in elegance rivalling the gazelle. 

 Among the carnivores were creatures resembling wolves 

 (Gynod&ri), foxes (Amphicyori), wolverines (Tylodon), and 

 hyaenas and civets (Proviverra) , all with characters like 

 the Hycenodon, now only found among the Marsupials. 



