512 LAND MAMMALS IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE 



Incomplete as the material is, it is yet possible to form 

 some general conception of this extraordinary animal when in 

 life. The head was short, broad and deep, rounded and very 

 probably furnished with a proboscis ; the neck was of moder- 

 ate length, so that the mouth could not reach the ground 

 without a straddling of the fore legs. The body was no doubt 

 long, the limbs long and rather slender, giving the animal a 

 stilted appearance, the feet very short, broad and columnar. 

 Several species of the genus are known, which differed much in 

 size, the largest (fA. giganteum) probably exceeding any modern 

 rhinoceros in height and length, and the smallest (fA. nanum) 

 not much larger than a Wild Boar. 



^Astrapothericulus, of the Patagonian stage, was smaller 

 than the average species of the Santa Cruz genus, and had 

 teeth of the same number, but the canines were not capable 

 of indefinite growth, and the lower molars had the pillar in the 

 posterior crescent so characteristic of the South American 

 hoofed animals. In the Deseado stage, on the contrary, the 

 fastrapotheres were of larger size, and in the commonest genus, 

 fParastrapotherium, the grinding teeth had lower crowns and 

 the premolars were more numerous, at least f . In the still 

 more ancient fAstraponotus, which gives its name to the upper 

 Eocene (or lower Oligocene) of Patagonia, the premolars were 

 present in full series. In the Casa Mayor the order was abun- 

 dantly represented by still more primitive genera, which as- 

 suredly had an undiminished number of teeth, though this 

 has not been proved. One of these genera, \Albertogavdrya, 

 was the largest animal of its time and the highly probable 

 ancestor of the series leading to the Santa Cruz ^Astrapothe- 

 rium. 



The second family of the order, the fTrigonostylopidse, 

 did not survive beyond the Eocene and is so imperfectly known 

 that any account of it would be to small profit. 



As stated above, the fAstrapotheria were an isolated group 

 and their relationships are problematical and are likely to re- 



