12 MAMMALS. 



(cement). Such a model will enable us to understand the nature of the cheek-teeth 

 of the Ungulate Mammals wlien we come to them. 



From a utiUtarian point of view Mammals are of extreme 

 Importance of „ , t • n j? 



Mammals importance to man, since it is from them— and more especially from 



to Man. thy Ungulate order — that by far the greater part of his animal food 



is procured, wliile their skins or fur furnish him largely with raiment ; and it is 



from their ranks alone that all liis beasts of burden and draught are recniited. 



Moreover, since these creatures are the highest representatives of the animal 



kingdom, among whom man himself must, from a zoological stamlpoiut, be 



included, their study is one which commend.s itself most forcibly to all who are 



in an J' way interested in Natural History. 



Mammals in Numerous as are the Mammals now living, it must never be 



the Past. forgotten that they form but a small moiety of those which flourished 

 at earlier periods of the history of our earth. The ]\Iammals of the present day 

 may, indeed, be compared to the topmost branches and twigs of a giant forest tree, 

 of which the larger limbs and tmnk are concealed from our view. And it will 

 accordingly be manifest that anj^ one wlio confines his studies to the existing species 

 will liave but a very imperfect idea of the whole array of Mammalian life, and of 

 the mutual connection of its various branches. The study of fossil Mammals is, 

 however, a difficult one, and one requiring an extensive knowledge of comparative 

 anatomy. All that can, therefore, be done in a work of the present nature is to 

 call attention, as occasion arises, to some of these extinct Mammals which are of 

 especial importance and interest as showing the manner in which groups now widely 

 separated from one another were formerly more or less completeh" connected. 



Altliough the number of 

 extinct Mammals is very large, 

 yet b}' far the greater propor- 

 tion of these belong to the 

 latest of tlie tliree great epochs 

 into which the geological his- 

 tory of our globe has been 



THE LEFT HALF OK THE LOWEH JAW OF AN EXTIKCT POUCHED MAMMAL. liviflpd WhereaS durillO' 



From the Cretaceous Rocks of North America. The tusk is ^ long-past epOch knoWU a*^ 



marked a. — After Marsh. » i ^ 



the Secondary period, during 

 whicli our chalk and oolites were deposited, the earth was tenanted by gigantic 

 reptiles of strange form, it is not till we come to the rocks overlying the chalk, 

 such as the London clay and overlying strata, that we find Mammals taking an 

 important place among the inhabitants of the earth. It was, indeed, during this 

 so-called Tertiary period that these animals attained the dominant position which 

 they now occupy ; and tlte present stage of the earth's history may be truly called 

 the age of Mammals and Birds. "VVe are not. however, to suppose from this that 

 Mammals were unknown before the Tertiary period ; a considerable number of 

 species, mostly of small size, having been already discovered. 



An additional importance attaches to the study of extinct Mammals, since it is 



