138 Things not generally Known. 



Hyrax, called ' coney' in our authorised version of the Bible, is 

 really only a diminutive and hornless rhinoceros. Remains have 

 been found at Eppelsheim which indicate an animal more like a 

 gigantic Hyrax than any of the existing rhinoceroses. To this 

 the name of Acerotherium (Hornless Beast) has been given. 



A THREE-HOOFED HORSE. 



Professor Owen describes the Hipparion, or Three-hoofed 

 Horse, as the first representative of a family so useful to man- 

 kind. This animal, in addition to its true hoof, appears to 

 have had two additional elementary hoofs, analogous to those 

 which we see in the ox. The object of these no doubt was to 

 enable the Hipparion to extricate his foot with greater ease 

 than he otherwise could when it sank through the swampy 

 ground on which he lived. 



TWO MONSTER CARNIVORES OF FRANCE. 



A huge carnivorous creature has been found in Miocene 

 strata in France, in which country it preyed upon the gazelle 

 and antelope. It must have been as large as a grisly bear, but 

 in general appearance and teeth more like a gigantic dog. 

 Hence the name of Amphicyon (Doubtful Dog) has been as- 

 signed to it. This animal must have derived part of its support 

 from vegetables. Not so the coeval monster which has been 

 called Machairodus (Sabre-tooth). It must have been some- 

 what akin to the tiger, and is by far the most formidable ani- 

 mal which we have met with in our ascending progress through 

 the extinct mammalia. Professor Owen. 



GEOLOGY OF THE SHEEP. 



No unequivocal fossil remains of the sheep have yet been 

 found in the bone-caves, the drift, or the more tranquil strati- 

 fied newer Pliocene deposits, so associated with the fossil bones 

 of oxen, wild-boars, wolves, foxes, otters, <fec., as to indicate 

 the coevality of the sheep with those species, or in such an 

 altered state as to indicate them to have been of equal anti- 

 quity. Professor Owen had his attention particularly directed 

 to this point in collecting evidence for a history of British 

 Fossil Mammalia. No fossil core-horns of the sheep have yet 

 been any where discovered ; and so far as this negative evi- 

 dence goes, we may infer that the sheep is not geologically 

 more ancient than man ; that it is not a native of Europe, but 

 has been introduced by the tribes who carried hither the germs 

 of civilisation in their migrations westward from Asia. 



THE-TRILOBITE. 



Among the earliest races we have those remarkable forms, 



