156 A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST 



Pleistocene, others from Pliocene deposits, and even from 

 the still older Miocene, but all keep to the one pattern of 

 lower jaw and lower jaw teeth. It is only in this little 

 island of Majorca, surrounded by very deep water and not 

 known to have nurtured any other animal so large in size 

 either in recent or geologic times, that we come upon a 

 Ruminant with horns like a goat's, but with great rat-like 

 front teeth in place of the semicircle of eight little cropping 

 toothlets. The wonderful thing is that the bones found by 

 Miss Bate are light and well preserved, evidently not very 

 ancient — probably late Pleistocene in age. 



The questions which arise are : Where did the rat-goat 

 come from ? How did this utterly peculiar change in a 

 Ruminant's teeth come about ? With regard to the second 

 question, it is a matter of importance that although we 

 have hitherto not discovered any Ruminants with this 

 modification of the teeth, still less any cavicorn or sheath- 

 horned Ruminant so altered, yet it is by no means rare 

 amongst herbivorous mammals to find such rat-like teeth 

 making their appearance, whilst the smaller side-teeth of 

 the incisor group or front teeth disappear. The Australian 

 kangaroos and wombats are a case in point — so is the 

 lemur-like aye-aye of Madagascar (an insect eater). So 

 is the Hyrax or "damian" of the Cape, and also the 

 very ancient Plagiaulax from the prae-chalk Purbeck clay. 

 But perhaps the best case for comparison with the 

 Ruminants is that of the Rhinoceroses. There are a 

 great many species and even genera of fossil and recent 

 Rhinoceroses. An old Miocene kind (called Hyracodon) 

 has eight little teeth in the front of the lower jaw. In 

 a Pliocene kind of rhinoceros (called R. incisivus) these 

 are reduced to two, the middle two, which are of great 

 size and project far forward — like those of the rat-goat 

 of Majorca. Among living rhinoceroses the Indian 

 species have these two front teeth, but smaller, whilst the 



