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Among the scanty mammals of the Lower Eocene formation we have the perissodactyle Ungulata represented by Coryphodon, Hyracotherium, and Pliolophus.
A true crocodile, also, Crocodilus toliapicus, and another saurian more nearly allied to the gavial, accompany the above fossils; also the relics of several birds and quadrupeds. One of these last belongs to the new genus Hyracotherium of Owen, of the hog tribe, allied to Chaeropotamus, another is a Lophiodon; a third a pachyderm called Coryphodon eocaenus by Owen, larger than any existing tapir.
The second of these types is the Hyracotherium. In size it must have been something like the rabbit or the hyrax. It had only three toes on its hind feet, and four on its front feet; though it had also a splint-bone, representing the shrunken and discarded fifth toe, on its fore feet. The teeth, and the bones and joints of the limbs, are also developing in the direction of the horse.
On the whole, about eighty species of fish have been described by M. Agassiz from these beds of Sheppey, and they indicate, in his opinion, a warm climate. In the lower part of the London clay at Kyson, a few miles east of Woodbridge, the remains of mammalia have been detected. Some of these have been referred by Professor Owen to an opossum, and others to the genus Hyracotherium.
"What about master's collections?" Conseil ventured to observe. "We'll deal with them later." "What! The archaeotherium, hyracotherium, oreodonts, cheiropotamus, and master's other fossil skeletons?" "The hotel will keep them for us." "What about master's live babirusa?" "They'll feed it during our absence. Anyhow, we'll leave instructions to ship the whole menagerie to France."
Disregarding some problematical five-toed forms like Phenacodus, the first type of undoubted relationship to modern horses is Hyracotherium, a little animal about three feet long that lived during the Eocene period of the Cenozoic epoch.
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