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The complex heavy grinders of the horse and elephant, the sharp cutting teeth of the carnivores, and the cropping teeth of the grass eaters were all still to come. Phenacodus is a characteristic genus of the early Eocene, whose species varied in size from that of a bulldog to that of an animal a little larger than a sheep.
We know that certain sounds, colours, or smells, which are not particularly noticed by most animals, produce an extraordinary effect on some species; and it is possible to believe, I think, that the human form or countenance, or the odour of the human body, may also have the effect on the puma of suspending its predatory instincts and inspiring it with a gentleness towards man, which we are only accustomed to see in our domesticated carnivores or in feral animals towards those of their own species.
I scolded that tramdriver on Harold's cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his harness scab. Bad French I got for my pains. Of course it was frosty and the last tram. All tales of circus life are highly demoralising. It was I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my patent spiked saddle for carnivores. Lash under the belly with a knotted thong.
The primitive Tracheates, delivered from the increasing carnivores of the waters, grew into a large and varied family, as all such new types do in favourable surroundings. I will not enter into the much-disputed and Obscure question of their nearer relationship.
It seems to have lived on small food, and been itself a rich diet to the larger carnivores. We find it in all the seas of the Mesozoic world, varying in length from six to forty feet, but it is one of the sluggish and unwieldy forms that are destined to perish in the coming crisis.
Their watchfulness over the safety of their herds against attacks of carnivores; the anxiety displayed by all individuals in a herd of chamois as long as all of them have not cleared a difficult passage over rocky cliffs. the adoption of orphans; the despair of the gazelle whose mate, or even comrade of the same sex, has been killed; the plays of the youngsters, and many other features, could be mentioned.
All these mammals live in societies and nations sometimes numbering hundreds of thousands of individuals, although now, after three centuries of gunpowder civilization, we find but the debris of the immense aggregations of old. How trifling, in comparison with them, are the numbers of the carnivores!
For weeks he had felt the hampering responsibility of their welfare in this savage wilderness where their utter helplessness would have rendered them easy prey for the savage carnivores or the cruel Wamabos.
In another case we have seen that by the people of one community deer are regarded as relatives, or as containing the souls of their ancestors, and that this belief probably had its origin in the fact that deer are in "the habit of frequenting the grassy clearings made about the tombs by the people. And we saw that a similar belief in respect of certain carnivores probably had a similar origin.
We have seen plainly that during the overwhelmingly greater part of the story of life the predominant agencies of evolution were struggle against adverse conditions and devouring carnivores; and we shall find them the predominant agencies throughout the Tertiary Era. * Thus the social nature of man is sometimes quoted as one of the chief causes of his development.
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