HUNTING FOR ANIMALS OF PAST AGES 27 



horns; two on top of the head and two just above 

 the nose. He had teeth somewhat like those of 

 a dog." 



This sounded like one of the strange stories so 

 often told for my benefit, but the geologist went 

 on to say: 



"Many of the strange animal species of Oli- 

 gocene times changed slowly through the ages 

 which followed, and more and more became like 

 the animals which we have to-day. While the 

 Oligocene horse and wild dog and beaver and 

 numbers of other animals but little resemble our 

 horses, dogs, and beavers of to-day, they were 

 after all the ancient ancestors of those now living, 

 and in fossils of animals who lived between the Oli- 

 gocene Period and the present we find forms that 

 show a series of changes through which they ad- 

 vanced from the peculiar forms of the Oligocene 

 to the specialized forms of to-day." 



Another animal which the men were ever 

 warning me to "watch out for" was one which 

 had hoofs like a cow and that climbed trees like a 

 cat. A queer, though small, animal of this 

 type did once live. 



" In the Oligocene times," said one of the geolo- 

 gists to me one evening, "lived an animal with a 

 five-jointed name who might have been a weather 

 prophet. He was not unlike a ground-hog and 

 lived in a den; but he had horns on his head." 



