

2l6 



THE CHAIN OF LIFE. 



head (Fig. 173). Creatures so supported and so armed, and 

 living where food was plentiful, might well dispense with any 

 great degree of intelligence, and their development of brain 

 is consequently little better than that of Coryphodon. These 

 great and characteristic Eocene families have no known 

 successors; and in the Miocene age their place is taken by 

 a very different group, that of which L^ontotherium is the 



J''if;. 173. — Skull of an Upper Eocene Perissodaclyl {Dinoceras vtt'rahilis), showing three 

 pairs of horn-bases. Greatly reduced. — After Alarsh. 



type (Fig. 175). They are creatures of huge size, with a pair 

 of horn-cores on the nose, and feet with four toes in front 

 and three behind, resembling in form those of the rhinoceros. 



While these gigantic Perissodactyles have no successors as 

 yet known to us, another and less conspicuous Eocene type 

 can be traced onward to modern times by a chain of successors 

 wmch the imagination of evolutionists has converted into a 



