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In Greek pachus means thick, and derma skin. Pachyderms, therefore, are thick-skinned animals. It is rather a vague denomination, as you perceive, and does not tell us much about them; but it appears that it was not very easy to find a better term.

In almost every case the position of the skeletons seems to show that the bears sought a last refuge in the caves, and that death had surprised them during their winter sleep. Pachyderms were no less numerous than bears.

He wants to know how to lay her keel straight, how to hit the right proportions, how to make her mind her helm, how to make her go; and he has been taught that the great pachyderms are divided into paleotheria and anoplotheria.

The disappearance of many large pachyderms and beasts of prey from Europe has often been attributed to the intervention of Man, and no doubt he played his part in hastening the era of their extinction; but there is good reason for suspecting that other causes co-operated to the same end.

He wants to rest a little, then to feed a little; then, if you will turn him loose in the pasture, he wants to roll. I have left my starry and ethereal companionship, not for a long time, I hope, for it has lifted me above my common self, but for a while. And now I want, so to speak, to roll in the grass and among the dandelions with the other pachyderms.

And in truth these Bad Lands are an immense ossuary where lie bleaching in the sun myriads of fragments of pachyderms, chelonians, and even, some would have us believe, fossil men, overwhelmed by unknown cataclysms ages and ages ago.

The performance will now continue and you will see what a great degree of intelligence is possessed by these pachyderms in the tricks which they will now perform for your gratification." And how the people shouted and applauded at that! "Bow to them. They are cheering for you," said Whiteface to Jerry. "They are glad you have been found."

You have witnessed the death-defying dives of the Demon Discobolus; you have laughed with the comical clowns; you have thrilled with the hurrying horses; and you have gasped at the ponderous pachyderms. Now you are to be shown a trick which has baffled the most profound minds of this or any other city aye, I may say, of the world!"

These strata are of great thickness, perhaps a thousand feet in some places; and along with such shells as Paludina, Planorbis, and Limnæa are also found remains of various other animals, such as fish, serpents, batrachians, crocodiles, ruminants, and those of huge pachyderms, as Rhinoceros, Dinotherium, and Cænotherium.

No one will dispute that the rudimentary teeth in the upper jaws of young ruminants, and certain rudimentary bones of the leg, are highly serviceable in exhibiting the close affinity between Ruminants and Pachyderms. Robert Brown has strongly insisted on the fact that the rudimentary florets are of the highest importance in the classification of the Grasses.