Extinct Monsters and Creatures of Other Days

The book that introduced the public to dinosaurs: sea-lizards, flying dragons, mammoths and the first horse, drawn from life by J. Smit and told by a clergyman-geologist who thought the museum's 'relics of a former world' deserved a storyteller.

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The Story of the Elephants (Yes where the huntsman winds)

"Yes, where the huntsman winds his matin horn, And the couched hare beneath the covert trembles; Where shepherds tend their flocks, and grow their corn, Where fashion in our gay Parade assembles- Wild horses, deer, and elephants have strayed, Treading beneath their feet old Ocean's races."

HORACE SMITH.

ALICE B WOODYWVARD
ALICE B WOODYWVARD

THE science of Palæontology is always advancing, sometimes by leaps and bounds, at other times slowly but surely. It is our pleasant duty to record here a great step in advance made some seven years ago chiefly by the researches in Egypt of Dr. C. W. Andrews, F.R.S. His discoveries in the district known as the Fayûm have enabled him to solve a very important and interesting problem, namely, the evolution of the Elephant, the only living representative of that strange order known to naturalists and palæontologists as the Proboscidia, because they are all provided with trunks. The relationships of the group are still partly wrapped in mystery, but as if to compensate for this loss, we can now tell how the elephant got his trunk! We can almost see it growing as we look at those wonderful skulls obtained from Egypt, showing, among other things, the great increase in size which took place. This is surely a great result, the problem of 1 According to Dr. C. W. Andrews, and others, they seem to be related to the Sirenia or sea-cows, an order very unlike in external appearance, but for all that the anatomist finds certain common characters.

ALICE B WOODYWVARD PLATE XLIV.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE ELEPHANT. AN EARLY ANCESTOR, MERITHERIUM. EOCENE PERIOD. EGYPT. Height about 3 feet at the shoulder.

Illustration lent by H. R. Knipe (from Nebula to Man). the evolution of the Proboscidia is solved at last! It will not be necessary to go into many details in our attempt to explain this wonderful story. If the reader should go to the Natural History LI p.mx. mx n fr. p.a.

S.OC. ant.orb 23 C pm2 ams im me Ju ex.oc pt. paroc.

FIG. 100.-Skull and lower jaw of Maritherium lyonsi, Middle Eocene of the
FIG. 100.-Skull and lower jaw of Maritherium lyonsi, Middle Eocene of the
FIG. 101. Skull and lower jaw of Palæomastodon beadnelli, from the Upper
FIG. 101. Skull and lower jaw of Palæomastodon beadnelli, from the Upper

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