HISTORY OF THE fTOXODONTIA 483 



many details, which it is not worth while to enumerate, though 

 it may be said that the nasal bones were so much shortened 

 that some kind of a proboscis or prehensile upper Up was prob- 

 ably present. The head was quite small in proportion to the 

 size of the animal as a whole. Such of the vertebrae as are 

 known were quite similar to those of ^Nesodon, but the limbs 

 were far longer and quite stout, though not massive. The 

 humerus was remarkable for the great development of the 

 ridges for the attachment of the deltoid and supinator muscles 

 and for the prominence of the epicondyles, all of which gave 

 to the bone the appearance of the humerus of a huge burrower, 

 yet it is impossible to believe that so large an animal could have 

 had burrowing habits. The fore-arm bones were separate 

 and very long, the ulna almost as heavy as the radius; the 

 latter is not known from a complete specimen, but there would 

 appear to have been some power of rotation, a power which is 

 conditioned by the shape of the upper end of the radius, and 

 its mode of articulation with the humerus in the elbow-joint. 

 The thigh-bone was long and heavy and its shaft was much 

 flattened, having lost the normal cylindrical shape, but re- 

 tained a small third trochanter. The bones of the lower leg 

 were separate and relatively short, and the fibula was un- 

 commonly heavy. 



So far, there was nothing very unusual, save in the shape of 

 the humerus, about the skeletal structure of the jEntelonychia, 

 the remarkable characters having been confined to the feet. 

 Were it not for these, the group might be included in the sub- 

 order fToxodonta without difficulty. The feet, which were 

 five-toed, differed notably in size, the manus being more than 

 twice as long as the pes. In the former the metacarpals 

 were very long and, though actually stout, were slender in 

 proportion to their length; there was also a very unusual 

 feature in an ungulate foot, that the heaviest of the digits was 

 the fifth, or external one. The mode of articulation of the 

 metacarpals with the first row of phalanges was very excep- 



