THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAMMALIA. 47 
family of the palaeotheres, which separated at a very early date 
from the main stem and became very abundant and varied in the 
upper Eocene and Oligocene of Europe, but never sent any rep- 
resentatives to the western hemisphere. A peculiar interest 
attaches to these forms, for they were among the first to be dis- 
covered and described by Cuvier at the end of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, who thus laid the foundations of palaeontology as a distinct 
science, and who startled the world by proving that whole races 
of animals had become extinct. The palaeotheres were long 
believed to be the direct ancestors of the horses, but this view 
has been abandoned in favor of the one explained above. They 
were short limbed and short footed animals which were incapable 
of any very radical change of structure, and, therefore, eventually 
gave way under the competition of more adaptable forms. 
[to be continued.] 
