152 



A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST 



in September, 1910) she has given the name " Myotragui 

 balearicus" 



I must ask the reader now to look at the figures here given 

 (Figs. 2 1 and 22) of the skull and the lower jaw of a goat, 

 The lower jaw might (except for size) pass for that of a sheep, 

 ox, antelope or deer. They are all alike. There are on each 

 side six grinding cheek teeth (molars), and then as we pass 

 to the front we find a long, toothless gap until we come to 

 the middle line where the two halves of the jaw unite. 



Fig. 23.— Side view of the skull of a typical " rodent " mammal, the 

 Coypu raf(Myocastor coypus) from South America, inc. s. Upper 

 incisor. jW. ». Lower incisor. j«.s., »>.«. Upper and lower molars, 

 grinders or cheek-teeth. 



There we see a little "semicircular group of eight chisel-like 

 teeth, which work against the toothless pad of the upper 

 jaw opposed to them and are the instruments by which 

 these animals, with an upward jerk of the head, " crop " 

 the grass and other herbage on which they feed, to be after- 

 wards triturated by the grinding cheek teeth. A vast 

 series of living and of fossil animals, called the Ruminants 

 — including the giraffes, the antler-bearing forms called 



