214: THE WOKLD OF LIFE 



be the monotremes (echidna and platypus) of Australia, jet in 

 the whole series of stratified rocks of Secondary and Tertiary 

 times no intermediate form has yet been discovered. 



A complete skeleton of one of the largest of these beast- 

 shaped reptiles is represented here (Fig. 45). The body of this 

 strange animal was nearly seven feet long, and its small teeth 

 show it to have been a vegetable feeder. The total length of 

 some specimens was nearly ten feet, and the immense limbs 

 were apparently adapted for digging, so that in loose soil it 

 mav have been of subterranean habits. In the same forma- 

 tion other allied but much smaller species were found. 



Along with these w^ere many creatures of the same general 

 type, but as clearly carnivorous as the others were herbivorous. 

 About a dozen distinct genera have been characterised, and as 

 each probably comprised several species, and as these have as 

 yet been all obtained from a few very limited areas, it is quite 

 possible that the land animals of the Cape Colony at that 

 early period may have been almost as numerous, as varied, and 

 as conspicuous as they are to-day. 



The two skulls here figured (Figs. 46 and 47) are of very 

 different forms, and must have belonged to animals about the 



Fig. 46. — Dicynodon lacerticeps (Order — Anomodontia). 

 From Karoo formation (Trias), South Africa. One-third nat. size. (B.M. Guide.) 



size of wolves; but there were many others of various shapes 

 and sizes, some even equalling that of a large crocodile. 



But at the same epoch, apparently, Europe and North Amer- 

 ica were equally well supplied w^ith these strange reptiles, Ira, 



