It is some confirmation of the
evolutionary embryonic law that we find the antlers developing in
this way in the individual stag to-day. A very curious race of
ruminants in the later Tertiary was a large antelope
(Sivatherium) with four horns. It had not only the dimensions,
but apparently some of the characters, of an elephant.
The elephant itself, the last type of the Ungulates, has a
clearer line of developments. A chance discovery of fossils in
the Fayum district in Egypt led Dr. C. W. Andrews to make a
special exploration, and on the remains which he found he has
constructed a remarkable story of the evolution of the elephant.*
It is clear that the elephant was developed in Africa, and a
sufficiently complete series of remains has been found to give a
good idea of the origin of its most distinctive features. In the
Eocene period there lived in the Egyptian region an animal,
something like the tapir in size and appearance, which had its
second incisors developed into small tusks and--to judge from the
nasal opening in the skull--a somewhat prolonged snout. This
animal (Moeritherium) only differed from the ordinary primitive
Ungulate in these incipient elephantine features.
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