Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 4.djvu/492

476 horn was a magnificent affair. But, as sometimes happens with the leading ornament, it was a little awkward in the setting. It was fixed right over the eye! Still, queer as this was, it had its uses. Hereby was achieved a huge bony arch, or cavern, for the protection of the kingly orb beneath—an important provision in case some sturdy old recalcitrant should stand in the way when his majesty went out on a regulation inspection of the royal domain; for, unlike some of his post-relations in Africa and Asia, who are content to take one horn at a time with their compeers, he never took less than two at a bout. In fact, the Rhinocerotidœ of the Tertiary age had their horns in pairs; and without doubt they were used in many a pell-mell fight—contests that likely had but little thinking as to the method of the conflict. From this arrangement of the horns in pairs on these creatures, so nearly related to the rhinoceros, the professor with a keen sagacity claims to disprove the statement that horns in pairs show relationship to the ruminants. His own words are: "They present no special marks of affinity to the artiodactyles, and show that the paired horns of the Eobasileidœ have no significance in the same direction."

A luminous body, if unobstructed, strews its rays in all directions. And a scientific fact or principle, could our eyes follow the emanations, would be found illuming many if not all other facts in science. It was but lately that the above generalization was reached, when it came forth full-blown from the working out of the new genus Symborodon. Of these very remarkable animals the professor gives us six or seven species. And strange beings, even among their contemporaries, must the Symborodontes have been. There was Symborodon bucco—the last word meaning "the cheeky"—and the fellow had "plenty of cheek." It was certainly so anatomically, and "we" are not speaking metaphorically now. The cheek-bones were enormously developed, so much so that they formed immense osseous masses on each side of his head. Indeed, a blow on the side of his caput would have been simply a capital joke; for how could so unimpressible a skull ever have seen the point? And this same individual comported himself with a ludicrously lofty air, for his eyes were set almost vertically in his head. Perhaps it was the Miocene fashion in the upper ranks to look for something to come down, unlike our Micawber mode of waiting for something to turn up. And this being was nearly as large as an adult elephant. As to what, and how much was his intellectual endowment, we know not. We don't think he was very sharp. But we had forgotten to add this attribute—he had two horns, and they were flat.

Perhaps the Caliban of those strange creatures was Symborodon altirostris; not that he was a dwarf among his compeers, for, though not the largest, he was an individual of great weight in his own day. Nor was it that he had a "forehead villainously low;" but because,