NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. \ox 



by which it could have attached itself, like the walrus, 

 to a, shore or bank, while its body floated in the water. 

 Dr. Buckland considers this and some similar miocene 

 animals, as adapted for a semi-aquatic life, in a region 

 where lakes abounded. Besides the tapirs, we luae in 

 this era animals allied to the glutton, the bear, the do;:, 

 the horse, the hog, and lastly, several felime (creatures 

 of "which the lion is the type) ; all of which ai-e new 

 forms, as far as we know. There was also an abundance 

 of marine mammalia, seals, dolphins, lamantins, walruses, 

 and whales, none of which had previously appeared. 



PLIOCENE SUB-PEllIOD. 



The shells of the older pliocene give from thirty-live 

 to fifty ; those of the newer, from ninety to ninety-tive 

 per cent, of existing species. The pachydermata of the 

 preceding era now disappear and are replaced by others 

 belonging to still existing families — elephant, hippopota- 

 mus, rhinoceros — though now extinct as species. Some of 

 these are startling, from their enormous magnitude. The 

 great mastodon, whose remains are found in abundance 

 in America, was a species of elephant, judged, from pecu- 

 liarities of its teeth, to have lived on aquatic plants, and 

 reaching the height of twelve feet. The mammoth was 

 another elephant, but supposed to have survived till 

 comparatively recent times, .is a specimen, in all respects 

 entire, WMs found in iSoi, prcsci-ved in ice, in Siberia. 

 We are more sui-pris(.'d by finding such gigantic [n'o[)0)- 

 tions in an animal called the megatherium, whicli raid^s 

 in an order now assuming much humbler forms — the 

 edentata — to which the sloth, ant-eater, and armailillo 

 belong. The megatherium had a skeleton of enormous 

 solidity, with an armour-clad l3ody, and five toes, termina- 



