44 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIEDS. 



Pier-case Essex, is placed with other British specimens in Pier-case 18. 



18, The animal seems to have become extinct in the British 



Isles long before the dawn of history, and it was succeeded 



by the imported Celtic short-horn {Bos longifrons), of which 



Pier-case numerous remains are shown in Pier-case 19. The latter 



18 - species is supposed to be the ancestor of the existing small 



Welsh and Scottish cattle. 



Skulls of primitive cattle collected chiefly by Colonel 

 Sir Proby T. Cautley in the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik 

 Pier-case Hills, India, are exhibited in Pier-case 17. The females of 

 17, some species seem to have been hornless. Skulls of Biibalus 

 from the Pleistocene of the Narbada Valley, India, are also 

 placed in Pier-case 19. The horn-cores of one specimen 

 have a span of over six feet. 



Goats and sheep are almost unknown among fossils, but 

 Pier-case a few fragments are shown in Pier-case 16. 



16 - Skulls and other remains of extinct antelopes, chiefly from 



the Lower Pliocene of Greece, the Isle of Samos, Persia, and 

 India/ are arranged in Pier-case 16. Palmoreas, Tragoceros, 

 and Criotherium are especially noteworthy. Among the 

 remains of gazelles, there is a horn-core (Gazella anglicajiiom 

 the Lower Pliocene Coralline Crag of Suffolk. 



Sub-ordek 4. — Amblypoda. 



Pier-case From some of the preceding observations it is evident 

 20- that most of the existing mammals can be traced back by 

 a series of gradations to small five-toed creatures, with an 

 insignificant brain-capacity, at the beginning of the Eocene 

 period. A few of the herbivorous mammals of the primitive 

 grade never advanced beyond this lowly condition, but grew 

 to unwieldy proportions, like those of a rhinoceros or ele- 

 phant. Their head became large, but the brain itself always 

 remained ridiculously small (Fig. 35a). Their limbs became 

 massive pillars, with little five-toed stumpy feet (Fig. 35b, c), 

 merely to support the overgrown body. They are appro- 

 priately named Amblypoda (" blunt feet ") in allusion to the 

 latter feature. They lived only during the Eocene period, 

 but they seem to have been very widely distributed, their 

 remains having been found in Europe, Egypt, North America, 

 and perhaps South America. 



Pier-case The first described fragment of an Amblypod is a piece 



20 - of mandible named Coryphodon eocsenus by Owen in 1846, 



probably from the London Clay, but dredged off the Essex 



