The second line was that of the rhinoceroses, tapirs, and horses, or the uneven-toed animals which have one or three toes on the hind feet. They took to very different means of defence. The Tapirs,[165] large, heavy, and with enormously tough hides, seem to depend chiefly upon their great strength for defence. Starting in warm times in the Old World, they have wandered in their day nearly all over the globe, dying out in later times, till now one kind is left solitary in Sumatra and Malacca, and the remainder have found their way down to South America, where they tear the branches from the trees with their short movable snouts, and feed peaceably at night unless attacked, when they make a furious rush at their enemy and conquer by sheer force. The rhinoceros, the tapir’s nearest relation, is even better defended; his skin is so thick and hard that in the Indian rhinoceros it actually forms a kind of jointed armour; his skull is wonderfully strong, and his nose is supported by thick bones, on the top of which are one or two solid horns, which are formed by a modification of the hairs of the skin growing matted together.[165] And now notice, just as we saw that the horned cow has no front upper teeth, so too the rhinoceros, though his horn is of quite a different kind, has in some cases lost his front teeth, which he does not need, since he rushes with his horn at his enemy instead of biting. Like the hippopotamus, the rhinoceros once wandered all over Europe and Asia, and when the great cold came on, the woolly species which roamed far north was often caught in the frost and snow of Northern Asia, where his fleshy body has been found preserved in the ice. Now he too has taken refuge in the warm parts of Asia and Africa, where he either grazes on the plains or plucks the leaves from the trees in the jungle with the fleshy flap of his upper lip. [Illustration: Fig. 68. Skeleton of a Wild Ass. _i_, incisor teeth; _g_, grinding-teeth, with the gap between the two sets as in all large grass-feeders; _k_, knee; _h_, heel; _f_, foot; _t_, middle toe of three joints carrying the hoof; _s_, splint, or remains of one of the two lost toes; _e_, elbow; _w_, wrist; _h_, hand-bone; 1, 2, 3, joints of the middle toe. ]