HISTORY OP THE fAMBIiYPODA 453 



SUBORDER fTALIGRADA 



None of the ungulate series considered in the foregoing 

 chapters can be traced back to a time earlier than the Wasatch, 

 and many of them not so far, but in the case of the f Amblypoda 

 the line may be carried down through the Paleocene. In the 

 upper stage of that epoch (Torrej on) the order was represented by 

 \Pantolamhda (Fig. 143, p. 285), a member of the third suborder, 

 fTaligrada. The best-known species of the genus was an animal 

 with head and body somewhat smaller than those of a sheep 

 and much shorter legs. The teeth were present in unreduced 

 number, 44 in all ; the canines were tusk-Uke, but very much 

 smaller proportionately than those of ^Coryphodon; the 

 premolars were smaller and simpler than the molars, which 

 closely represent the common starting point, whence the curious 

 tooth-patterns found in the subsequent genera of the various 

 families were derived. The skull was long and narrow and had 

 a prominent sagittal crest ; the neck was of ordinary length, 

 about equal to that of the head ; the body was long and the 

 tail very long, much as in the great cats. The hip-bones were 

 narrow and slender and not bent outward, having no such 

 breadth as in ^Coryphodon. The limbs were short and relatively 

 heavy, and the various bones were of such primitive character 

 that, if found isolated and not in association with teeth or 

 foot-bones, one would hardly venture to consider them as be- 

 longing to any hoofed animal ; the humerus had a very promi- 

 nent deltoid crest and an epicondylar foramen, and the femur 

 had the third trochanter. The five-toed feet were very short, 

 and the digits were arranged in a spreading manner and were 

 relatively much more slender than in IfCoryphodon. Each 

 digit terminated in a flat, pointed, well-developed hoof; evi- 

 dently there was no elastic pad to bear the weight, such as 

 recurs in nearly all very heavy ungulates. The gait of the 

 animal was probably semi-plantigrade, the hoofs being the 

 principal points of support. 



