110 MIGHTY ANIMALS 



of them. Yet the Arsinoitherium lived hundreds 

 of thousands of years before the pyramids were 

 built. His bones now lie in a desert, but in his life- 

 time that .>ame locality was a fertile country and 

 the home of many kinds of animals, most of which 

 were probably his enemies. There were gigantic 

 tortoises, snakes fully sixty feet in length, ostrich- 

 like birds, big crocodiles, river turtles, sea snakes, 

 and whales, as well as some very peculiar beasts 

 which were among the first ancestors of the ele- 

 phant, although they were but little like the ele- 

 phants with which we are familiar. 



In the course of time many of these animals 

 entirely disappeared and nothing like them has ever 

 since been seen. Others slowly changed in form and 

 developed in size until they became so powerful that 

 they in their turn were the rulers of the earth, just as 

 many other mighty creatures had been before them. 



