Now I come to the extraordinary interest of Miss Bate's goat-like or
antelope-like animal from Majorca. Although it is shown by its skull
(Fig. 20) and other bones to be distinctly one of the sheath-horned
Ruminants, very like a small goat or antelope, the lower jaw, of which
there are several specimens, does not present in front the little
group of eight small chisel-like "cropping" teeth, but, instead, two
enormous rodent teeth placed side by side, very deeply fixed in the
jaw, and quite like those of some rat-like animals in shape. Hence the
name given to this little marvel by Miss Bate--"Myotragus," "the
rat-goat." This strange little animal also differs from goats and
antelopes in having proportionately much thicker and shorter "feet"
(cannon-bones) than they have.

If the remains of this strange little creature had turned up in more
ancient strata--in Pliocene or Miocene--it would have not been quite
so astonishing. But it would be still very remarkable, since it has
all the characters of a goat-like creature in the shape of its skull,
its bony horn-cores, its limb-bones, and its cheek-teeth; and yet, as
it were monstrously and in a most disconcerting way, protrudes from
its lower jaw two great rats' teeth. Nothing like it or approaching it
or suggesting it, is known among recent or fossil Ruminants. They all
without exception have a lower jaw with the teeth of the exact number
and grouping which you may see in a sheep's lower jaw. We know
hundreds of them, both living and fossil, many from the Pleistocene,
others from Pliocene deposits, and even from the still older Miocene,
but all keep to the one pattern of lower jaw and lower jaw teeth. It
is only in this little island of Majorca, surrounded by very deep
water and not known to have nurtured any other animal so large in size
either in recent or geologic times, that we come upon a Ruminant with
horns like a goat's, but with great rat-like front teeth in place of
the semicircle of eight little cropping toothlets. The wonderful thing
is that the bones found by Miss Bate are light and well preserved,
evidently not very ancient--probably late Pleistocene in age.

[Illustration: Fig. 20.--Drawing of the skull of the rat-toothed goat,
Myotragus--the new extinct beast discovered in limestone fissures in
the island of Majorca by Miss Bate. 1. Side view of the skull and
lower jaw. 2. Appearance of the two rat-like teeth as seen when the
end of the lower jaw is viewed f