Though the past history of the Mediterranean sea shows that it was formerly not so extensive as it is now, and that there were junctions between Europe and Africa across its waters, yet the deeper parts of that sea are very ancient, and some of the islands have long been isolated. In Malta the remains of extraordinary species of minute elephants have been found, one no larger than a small donkey, and in the island of Cyprus an English lady, Miss Dorothea Bate, has discovered the bones of a pigmy hippopotamus (like that still living in Liberia) no larger than a sheep. Miss Bate some three years ago heard of the existence of a bone-containing deposit of Pleistocene age in limestone caverns and fissures in the island of Majorca, and with the true enthusiasm of an explorer determined to carry on some "digging" there and see what might turn up. In the following spring she was there, and obtained a number of bones, jaws, and portions of skulls, which appeared at first sight to be those of a small goat. Its size may be gathered from the fact that its skull is six inches long. These and the bones of a few small finches were all that rewarded her pains. The bones of fossil goats (of living species) are found in caves at Gibraltar and in Spain; so at first the result seemed disappointing. But on carefully clearing out the specimens and examining them in London, Miss Bate found that the supposed goat bones obtained by her in Majorca were really those of a new and most extraordinary animal, to which (in a paper published in the "Geological Magazine" in September, 1910) she has given the name "_Myotragus balearicus_." [Illustration: Fig. 16.--Side-view of the skull and lower jaw of a goat. _inc. i._ The three lower incisor teeth of the left side. _can. i._ The little canine teeth grouped with them. _p._ The toothless front part of the upper jaw. _m. s._ Upper molars or "grinders." _m. i._ Lower molars or grinders. Compare this and the following figures with Fig. 10, showing the more complete "dentition" of the pig.] [Illustration: Fig. 17.--Horizontal view of the teeth in the lower and upper jaw of the goat. In front of the lower jaw the group of three incisors (_inc. i._) and one canine is seen, whilst the toothless bony plate (_p._) of the upper jaw, against which they work, is seen in the right-hand half of the figure. The molars, "grinders," or cheek-teeth are numbered 1 to 6 in each jaw.] [Illustration: Fig. 18.--Side view of the skull of a typical "rodent" mammal, the Coypu rat (_Myocastor coypus_) from South America. _inc. s._ Upper incisor. _inc. i._ Lower incisor. _m. s._, _m. i._ Upper and lower molars, grinders or cheek-teeth.]