Animals Before Man 



mammals would be found to be characterized 

 by having five-toed, plantigrade feet, and tuber- 

 cular teeth. No such animal was known at the 

 time (1874), but in 1 880 Dr. Wortman obtained 

 a practically complete skeleton of Phenacodus, 

 nearly at the close of a collecting season that 

 up to that time had yielded almost nothing. 

 And this well illustrates the uncertainties at- 

 tending the collection of fossils. 



In the fore foot of Phenacodus we get the 

 first suggestion of a hand, though it be a sug- 

 gestion merely. The articulations of the inner- 

 most finger are such that it looks inward, and 

 while it had no such power of grasping as 

 exists in the hand of man, or even a monkey, 

 yet it seems to have been Nature's first attempt 

 at a hand. So Professor Cope argues that we 

 must look to the early members of the group 

 to which Phenacodus belongs for- the ancestors 

 of the lemurs, while from these have come the 

 higher monkeys. 



The place of the carnivores was at this time 

 held by animals similar in habits, though differ- 

 ent in the details of their teeth and skeletons, 



221 



