234 
EXTINCT MONSTERS 
the largest. Its eye was small, and the head rather large. 
Several species have been determined, varying from the size of 
a sheep (P. cnrtum) to that of a horse (P. magnum), and it had 
much in common with both the horse and the rhinoceros. 
P. medium was rather smaller than an American Tapir : P. minus 
was a small and elegant species, of which the fresh-water Eocene 
beds of the Isle of Wight have yielded remains. 
A complete specimen, discovered in 1874, with the outline of 
the body indicated in the rock, was of a slenderer build, and with 
a longer neck than in Cuvier’s restoration, on which our artist’s 
drawing in Plate XXXIX. is based ; but the earlier discoveries do 
not agree with this, and the reader can easily see for himself that 
the skeleton shown in Eig. 86 could not have had a longer neck 
without at the same time having longer legs, and probably thinner 
bones. We have therefore adhered to the now familiar outline 
of the Palaeothere as restored by Cuvier and since copied into 
almost every book on Geology. Doubtless there were many 
species existing at the time, and this later discovery probably 
represents one of the slenderer sort. 
Such then, in all probability, was the Palaeothere, a creature 
which lived in herds in the valleys of the plateau surrounding 
the ancient lake-basins of Orleans and Argenton; in the de- 
partment of Gironde ; in the Isle of Wight : and in various parts 
of Europe. 
Its contemporary, the Anoplotherium,^ so called from its 
apparently defenceless state, is represented in the same Plate. 
This animal was of a lighter and more elegant form, and its 
limbs ended each in two digits, only terminating in hoofs. As in 
the Palaeothere, the jaws contained forty-four teeth, but there 
was no interval in the series. There are suggestions in its frame- 
1 Greek — alfha^ privative ; hopla, arms ; tJierion^ beast. 
