TERTIARY AGE. 



503 



eral Waders, an Owl, a species apparently related to the Woodpecker, 

 and two or three web-footed species, allied to the Gannet, Guillemot, 

 etc. ; and the Pliocene has afforded remains of an Eagle, as large as 

 the Golden Eagle, a Cormorant, etc., sufficient to indicate that the 

 type of Birds was well displayed. 



The Mammals, in this age of Mammals, have a special interest. No 

 remains have yet been found in the Lignitic group of the marine Clai- 

 borne beds; but, in the overlying Jackson beds there are bones of one 

 or more species of gigantic whale-like animals. The most common, 

 called the Zeuglodon cetoides Owen, was probably about seventy feet 

 in length. The large vertebra?, some of them a foot and a half long 

 and a foot in diameter, were formerly so abundant over the country, in 

 Alabama, that they were used for making walls, or were burned to rid 

 the fields of them. Fig. 917 shows one of the yo£e-shaped teeth, to 

 which the name (from £evy\r], yoke, and oSous, tooth) alludes. The re- 

 mains occur in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina; 

 and a species of the genus is found in the Tertiary of Europe. 



The earliest American Eocene terrestrial quadrupeds yet known 

 are from the Middle Eocene of the Rocky Mountain region. The 

 species are related to the modern Tapirs. A figure of the living 

 Malayan Tapir is here given for illustration. A prominent feature of 



Fig. 918. 



Tapirus Indicus, 



these Herbivores is the long and useful nose ; it is the organ employed 

 for getting its food ; and in some it is long enough to be flexed 

 around a small tree. The Tapir, in this respect, is between the 

 Elephant and the Hog. Like these animals, and also the Rhinoceros, 

 it belongs to the section of plant-eaters which has been called 

 Sthenorhines (from aOevos, strong, and piv, nose), in allusion to the fact 

 that the nose is the power-organ. Like other species of the Tapir 



