We
must dismiss them briefly. We saw that the primitive herbivores
divided early in the Eocene into the "odd-toed" and "even-toed"
varieties; the name refers, it will be remembered, not to the
number of toes, but to the axis of stress. The Artiodactyl group
must have quickly branched in turn, as we find very primitive
hogs and camels before the end of the Eocene. The first hog-like
creature (Homacodon) was much smaller than the hog of to-day, and
had strong canine teeth, but in the Oligocene the family gave
rise to a large and numerous race, the Elotheres. These
"giant-pigs," as they have been called, with two toes on each
foot, flourished vigorously for a time in Europe and America, but
were extinguished in the Miocene, when the true pigs made their
appearance. Another doomed race of the time is represented by the
Hyopotamus, an animal between the pig and the hippopotamus; and
the Oreodontids, between the hog and the deer, were another
unsuccessful branch of the early race. The hippopotamus itself
was widespread in Europe, and a familiar form in the rivers of
Britain, in the latter part of the Tertiary.
The camel seems to be traceable to a group of primitive North
American Ungulates (Paebrotherium, etc.
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