438 



ANOPLOTHERIUM. 



2. A. secundarium. Similis prsecedenti, sed statura 

 Suis." 



The common Anoplothere was eight feet long, including 

 the tail, and four feet and a half without the tail ; the 

 body being about as long as that of a common Ass, but 

 less elevated from the ground ; the height to the withers 

 being probably little more than three feet. The long and 

 powerful tail must have formed the chief peculiarity in the 

 living animal's outward form, and must have been of the 

 same service to it in swimming, as the tail of the Coypu 

 and the Otter. Cuvier concludes, therefore, that the ex- 

 tinct aquatic Herbivore swam the ancient lakes of the 

 rising European continent, like the Water Vole and the 

 Hippopotamus, in quest of the succulent roots and stems 

 of aquatic plants ;* but we may pause and remark on this 

 conjecture, that the Anoplothere possessed neither the 

 chisel-shaped incisors of the one for gnawing through such 

 roots and stems, nor the great projecting tusks of the other 

 for uprooting and tearing them from the soil ; on the con- 

 trary, its small, equable and well-opposed upper and lower 

 incisors would indicate that it cropped grass like a horse, 

 and the close resemblance of the molars in the pattern of 

 their grinding surface to those of the Euminants and horse 

 tribe, strengthens the probability that the Anoplothere 

 came on land to browse or graze. 



The existence of many destructive Carnivora at that 

 early period of Mammalian life may partly explain the 

 advantage to the Anoplotlierium commune of its power of 

 taking shelter in the water, especially as it wanted the 

 means of rapid flight enjoyed by some of its congeners with 

 long and slender limbs as, for example, the Anoplotherium 



* " II allait done chercher les racines et les tiges succulentes des plantes aqua- 

 tiques." Cuv. loc. cit. torn. iii. p. 247. 



