ANOPLOTHERIUM.
Do you notice the strange way his teeth are placed, working in and out of each other? This suggests a labyrinth, and hence his name, Labyrinthodon.
You may not recognise him as a toad, but such he was, and was as big as an ox.
So the toad in the fable, which, you remember, attempted to swell himself to the size of an ox, and came to grief thereby, was only trying to make himself such as his forefathers had been.
The opossum was about the best-looking animal on the earth in those days. The rest were nearly all frightful monsters. There was the Ichthyosaurus, a great fish-lizard, thirty feet long, and ten times more dreadful than the present crocodiles. Then there was the Plesiosaurus, which had the body and feet of a turtle, only many times larger, a short stumpy tail, and a neck like a serpent, thirty feet long. And the Pterodactyls, like huge bats, with birds’ heads, and very long bills.
After this race of animals died off there appeared upon the earth a better-looking set. But these, too, all died long before the deluge, and we have none of them now.
One of these, the Anoplotherium, is supposed to have been something like our otter, but it was much larger; and I don’t think, myself from the pictures we have of him, that the likeness is very strong.
ITURIM, AND HIS FORTUNES.
The Antis Indians live in the mountainous districts of Peru. They have a proverb: “From happiness to misfortune is only a flea-leap.”
Iturim proved the truth of this very early in life. He was a young Antis who had been so successful in his various journeys to the cities on the coast, where he sold apes and birds, that he was able to build and furnish a fine house; to adorn his person bravely; and to take a wife.