144 



Biology in America 



Among these inniiigrants of Ihc past were members of the 

 rodent or rat order, tiny forerunners of tlie artiodaetyls or 

 mammals Avith paired toes, inelnding eattlc, sheep, eamels, 

 goats, pigs, etc., ancient tapii-s, and Kohippus, the tirst of 

 the horses, a graceful little creature about the size of a do- 

 mestic cat, with four front, and three hind toes and indi- 

 cations of a fifth toe in the front, and possibly two extra toes 

 in the hind foot. In the Wasatch beds which cover large 

 areas in New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and Mon- 

 tana their remains are found in great numbers, so that they 

 must have been common inhabitants of this region in early 

 Eocene da^^s. 



The Tarsier 

 Whose relatives in rlays gone by inhabited the forests of North 

 America, but today is found in the East Indies and the Philippines. 

 From Lull, after Brehm. 



But perhaps the most interesting of the early invaders of 

 North America were small monkey-like habitues of the tree- 

 tops in the Wasatch forests. Their invasion however was 

 but temporary, as they died out later in the Eocene, never 

 to reappear in North America. Inhabiting the forests of 

 the Malay Aichipelago is a little squirrel-like monkey, the 

 tarsier. "The particular interest which Tarsius possesses for 

 the student of American mammals is its resemblance to the 

 Wasatch genus Ana])toniorphus, the type of a family which 

 was abundant and varied in the lower and middle Eocene. 

 This genus was remarkably advanced in view of its great 

 antiquity. . . . The face was very much shortened ; the orbits 

 were very large and encircled in bone, but without the pes* 



