EOCENE PERIOD 
The brutes enjoy. From what old parent flood, 375 
And intermediate forms, they drew their blood, 
A mystery is. And though they may not be 
Marked to beget a long posterity, 
Yet must the ungainly monsters represent 
Some line of life of long development. 380 
*****## 
About Europa carnivores we see, 
Still bearing sign of " pouched " life ancestry. 
Creodonts, opossum-skulled, their ways are wending 
And to Hyaenas seem in structure tending. 
And creatures roam that seem allied to Bears, 385 
Though lengthened heads, as those of Dogs, are theirs. 
Here too are dog-toothed Civet looking creatures, 
That seem possessed of still more canine features. 
Looms not the Dog, though for the time is he 
Bound up with Bears, and Civet beasts to be ? 390 
New Lemur forms are here, safe in the trees, 
And little dream their race's destinies. 
Coryphodons, that here of old had been, 
And, though be-tusked, to Tapirs seemed akin, 
Are, one and all, now vanished from the scene. 395 
Now at Columbia's realm again we glance 
Where land lies out in fuller evidence ; 
And upheaved beds that bore her central sea 
Have now made one long separate territory. 
"5 
