14 ELEPHANTS. 



MOERITHERIUM. 



Moeritherium (figs. 6, 7,8) (Wall-case 43 ; Table-case 24) was 

 an animal about the size of the tapir, which it must have 

 much resembled in general appearance. It was common in the 

 region that is now known as the Fayum in Lower Egypt, 

 where its fossil remains occur in considerable quantities in 

 the Upper Eocene beds, intermingled with bones of toothed 

 whales (Zeuglodori), sea-cows (Eosiren), marine turtles (Pse- 

 phophorus and Thalassochelys), and snakes (Pterosphenus) , as 

 well as skeletons of fishes. From this mixture of land and 

 aquatic animals it may be concluded that Moeritherium lived 

 near the shore, probably in swamps at the mouth of a great 

 river, where the remains of both marine and of drowned land- 

 animals would be mingled and entombed together in the muds 

 and clays, which accumulated in the estuary and now make up 

 much of the strata found in this locality. In the Lower 

 Oligocene beds, overlying those just described, remains of 

 Moeritherium are also found; here, however, there is no inter- 

 mingling of marine animals, but instead we find remains of 

 many remarkable land-mammals, crocodiles, and immense 

 quantities of trunks of fossil trees embedded in the sands and 

 gravels of a great river. Probably both the animals and the 

 tree-trunks were swept away by floods, their remains piled up 

 in shallows and places where the current was slack, and buried 

 in the mud and sand carried down by the stream. 



The skull of Moeritherium (see fig. 6) differs in no very 

 marked manner from that of other primitive hoofed-animals, 

 and shows scarcely any trace of the peculiarities of the 

 skulls of the later Proboscidea. The most important feature 

 is the large nasal opening not quite at the end of the 

 snout, the nasal bones being short ; this indicates that probably 

 there was already a short proboscis, something like that of the 

 tapir. Another interesting point is that some of the bones at 

 the back of the skull are thickened and contain air-chambers ; 

 in the later elephants this development of air-cells is carried to 

 such an extent that the whole form of the skull, particularly the 



