THE REIGN OF MAMMALS. 215 



canines like the bear, while their feet resembled those of the 

 elephant, and some of them attained the dimensions of the 

 ox. Coryphodon is thus, as might be expected in a primal 

 placental mammal, a creature of somewhat generalised type. 

 Another point in which it resembles some at least of its early 

 Tertiary contemporaries is the small size of the brain, especially 

 in those parts of it supposed to minister to the intelligence 

 and higher instincts (Fig. 171, a). It is certainly remarkable 

 that as Tertiary time went on the successive groups of mammals 

 were gifted with brains of larger and larger size, fitting them 

 for higher functions, and ultimately for associating with man. 



Fig. ij2.— FoTe-ioot oi Coryp/iotion. Greatly reduced. — After Marsh. 



Animals thus low in development of brain were probably slow 

 and sluggish and stubbornly ferocious, and dependent on brute 

 force for subsistence and defence ; and they would have been 

 altogether unsuitable for domestication had they lived to the 

 present time. 



In |:he Middle Eocene, the place of Coryphodon was taken 

 by Dinoceras and allied forms. Some of the species nearly 

 equalled the elephant in size, but had shorter and stouter 

 limbs, each supported on five great toes — the most perfect 

 possible sort of pedestal foot (Figs. 172, 174). They were 

 heavily armed with immense canines on the upper jaws, and 

 two or even three pairs of horns or hard protuberances on the 



