Animals Before Man 



cation. But the Pleistocene period witnessed 

 the final disappearance of these monsters, as it 

 did of so many other large animals, and only 

 their degenerate and diminutive relatives are 

 left. 



At this time herds of peccaries were com- 

 mon throughout the Southern and Middle 

 States, reaching, indeed, as far north as New 

 York and Kansas, where their bones occur in 

 gravel banks. They belonged to larger species 

 than either of the two now living, though simi- 

 lar to them in general appearance. 



Tapirs, too, were found as far north as Ten- 

 nessee, and a great rodent, much larger than 

 the beaver, and improperly classed with that 

 animal under the name of Castoroides, dwelt in 

 the swamps of Ohio and northern New York. 

 The nearest living relative of Castoroides is not 

 the beaver, but the large Coypu rat of South 

 America, a species much used in the making of 

 felt hats. But save a few small species in 

 Texas, none of these animals survived the wave 

 of cool climate which succeeded the warm wave 

 on whose crest the southern species were swept 



256 



