MAMMALIA ABUNDANT. 77 



four toes upon the fore feet. One British specimen seems to 

 have been about a third larger than the modern animal. 



Another section of the Paris eocene remains have served to 

 reconstruct a family to which the general name Anoplo- 

 therium has been given, from a regard to its deficiency of all 

 offensive or defensive weapons. These are the first examples 

 of bi-hooved animals as yet discovered upon earth ; they were 

 strictly herbivorous, and make a slight approach to the 

 cervine or deer tribes. The common anoplothere was about 

 the size of an ass, but less elevated from the ground, and with 

 a tail of above three feet in length ; it is supposed to have 

 been of aquatic habits, and an expert swimmer and diver, 

 but also given to browsing upon land. Associated with these 

 we find the first example (choeropotamus) of an animal ap- 

 proaching to the hog tribe, being nearest to the peccary of 

 South America. 



We learn from the remainder of the Paris fossils, and from 

 others found in the eocene, that the earth now possessed fresh- 

 water reptiles ; serpents of the size of the boa ; natatorial, 

 wading, and rapacious birds ; rodents (dormouse and 

 squirrel) ; species allied to the racoon, the genet, and fox ; 

 also bats and monkeys. Lastly, the oldest tertiaries of 

 America present us with the Zeuglodon, a herbivorous whale 

 resembling the dugong, having a stinted development of the 

 extremities, but an enormous tail, and reaching altogether 

 the length of a hundred feet. 



In the miocene sub-period, the shells give eighteen per 

 cent, of existing species, showing a considerable advance 

 from the preceding era with regard to the inhabitants of the 

 sea. The advance in land animals is less marked, but yet 

 considerable. The predominating forms are still pachyderms, 

 and the tapiroid animals continue to be conspicuous. Here 

 occur remains of the Dinotherium, a creature said to exhibit 

 an affinity to the cetacea in the form of its head, and to the 

 tapir in the character of its teeth. It is most distinguished 

 by its huge size, being not less than eighteen feet long ; it had a 

 mole-like form of the shoulder-blade, conferring the power 

 of digging for food, and a couple of tusks turning down from 



