ITS NEA REST EXISTING RELATIONS 



61 



African rhinoceroses is considered very good eating by 

 the natives of the countries in which they live, being, 

 according to Selous, 1 ' something like beef, but yet 

 having a peculiar flavour of its own. The part in 

 greatest favour among hunters is the hum]), which, if 

 cut off whole, and roasted, just as it is, in the skin, in 

 a hole dug in the ground, would be difficult to match 

 either for juiciness or flavour.' 



Before leaving the rhinoceroses, a huge creature 

 belonging to the family, to which the name of Elasmo- 

 ilierimn has been given, should be mentioned. It is only 

 imperfectly known by fossil remains found in Pleistocene 

 deposits in Russia ; but it is interesting on account of the 

 remarkable degree of specialisation its molar teeth had 

 attained, far beyond that of the existing rhinoceroses, and 

 comparable in the length of the crowns and the complex 

 folding of the enamel to that of the horses of the same 

 or later period, though on a very much larger scale. It 

 affords a good illustration of the fact previously mentioned, 

 that the most highly specialised members of a group are 

 not always those that survive the longest. 



The Horses (Family Equidce) 



As has been already stated, at about the time of the 



world's history when the Miocene was passing into what 



1 See F. C. Selous, Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 

 1881. 



