76 FOURTH FLOOR, SOUTH PAVILION 



only two feet ten inches high, and the rough-boned draught horse, which 



stands six feet one inch in height. ( 'ontrast these with the slender-limbed 



" Sysonby" the famous race horse, and the Arabian stallion " Ximr." Man 



by his intelligence has modified the form of the horse to meet 



his needs and has accomplished in a small degree but rapidly. 

 of Modern , , , , . . 



„ what nature has done in an extensive way during long ages 



— as will be seen from the fossil horses in the next hall. The 

 similarity in structure of the skeletons of horse and man is brought out in 

 the exhibit of a rearing horse being controlled by man. A comparison of 

 these two skeletons will show that with some modification the bones of the 

 one correspond with the bones of the other. The horse lover will also be 

 interested in the osteological collections in the wall cases which show how 

 to tell the age of horses through the growth and development of the teeth. 



Beyond the horse exhibit on the left are fossils from South America, 

 the most striking of which is the group of giant ground sloths. There are 

 also good examples of the Glyptodon, a sort of gigantic armadillo with its 



peculiar shell-like covering, the saber-toothed tiger and other 



os singular extinct a nimals peculiar to South America. Although 



Mammals . . , . , , x . , . 



f S th these animals were contemporaneous with the JNortn Amen- 



America can mammals of this period, they are so different in structure 



from any other known mammals, that it is practically certain 

 that during their evolution South America was an island continent without 

 land connection with North America. 



The principal exhibits on the north side of the hall are the mammoths 

 and mastodons and the series of skulls showing the evolution of the elephants. 

 The " Warren Mastodon" is a classic specimen. It was found 

 M . , near Xewburg, X. Y. in 1846, and is the finest specimen of 



its kind that has ever been discovered. While to the lay 

 mind mastodon and mammoth are one, note that there are as great differ- 

 ences between them as there are between a deer and a moose. The mam- 

 moth and the mastodon were almost world-wide in their distribution, their 

 remains being found on every northern continent, those of the mastodon 

 in South America also. The modern elephants are confined to a limited 

 area in India and Africa. While modern elephants are not direct descen- 

 dants of the American elephants, they have originated from species in Asia 

 which were contemporaneous with the mammoth and mastodon. Without 

 any doubt prehistoric man hunted these animals. 



