ts with
ordinary trunkless, tuskless mammals. The transition from the "beast
of Meris" on the one hand to the common typidentate mammalian
ancestor, and on the other hand to the elephants, is easy, and
requires no effort of the imagination. His short muzzle (upper and
lower jaw), first elongated step by step to a considerable length,
giving us Palaeomastodon (Fig. 13). Then the lower jaw shrunk and
became shorter than it was at the start, and the rest of the muzzle
(the front part of the upper jaw, carrying with it the nostrils),
drooped and became the mobile muscular elephant's trunk!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: I am inclined to think that the line between Pliocene and
Pleistocene or Quaternary ought, in this country, to be drawn between
the White and Red Crag of Suffolk. Glacial conditions set in and were
recurrent from the commencement of the Red Crag deposit onwards.]

[Footnote 6: Mammals having the number and form of teeth which I have
just described as typical--or such modification of it as can easily be
produced by suppression of some teeth and enlargement of others--are
called Typidentata. On the other hand, the whales, the sloths,
ant-eaters, and armadilloes, as also the Marsupials, are called
Variodentata, because we cannot derive their teeth from those of the
Typidentate ancestor. They form lines of descent which separated from
the other mammals before the Typidentate ancestor of all, except the
groups just named, was evolved.]

CHAPTER VII

A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST

The terraces of gravel deposited by existing rivers and the deposits
in caverns in the limestone regions of Western Europe--the so-called
"Pleistocene" strata--contain, besides the flint weapons of man and
rare specimens of his bones, the remains of animals which are either
identical with those living at the present day (though many of them
are not living now in Europe) or of animals very closely similar to
living species. Thus we find the bones of horses like the wild horse
of Mongolia, of the great bull (the Urus of Caesar), of the bison, of
deer and goats, of the Siberian big-nosed antelope, of the musk-ox
(now living within the Arctic circle), of the wild boar, of the
hippopotamus (like that of the Nile), and of lions, hyenas, bears, and
wolves. The most noteworthy of the animals like to, but not identical
with, any living species are the mammoth, which is very close to the
Indian elephant, but has a hairy coat; the hairy rhinoc