382 VIEW OF THE FAUNA OF BRAZIL 



A glance at our list of the extinct mammalian fauna of 

 Brazil, will be sufficient to show that in its main features it 

 bore the same stamp as the system that has succeeded it in 

 the same region. This peculiarity in South America's ex- 

 isting fauna is in harmony with the isolated position and the 

 form of this continent. When, therefore, we find this same 

 peculiarity in its animal productions in that former period, 

 we are emboldened to conclude that its general form and 

 boundaries were the same then as now. The existence at 

 that time of generic forms in South America, which at pre- 

 sent are peculiar to the Old World, such as the Hyaena and 

 Antelope, can no more weaken the force of this conclusion, 

 than the present existence of a genus in South America, be- 

 longing to the New Holland family of Marsupials, is sufficient 

 to prove that the two continents are now united together. 

 On the other side, the proof of the existence of one and the 

 same species of mammal, in the warmer regions of Europe 

 and in South America, would be a phaenomenon calculated to 

 strengthen the uniform result to which all our examinations 

 have hitherto led us. And exactly such a specific identity 

 between inhabitants of the old and new continents is known 

 to have occurred in those times : the authority for this is 

 Cuvier. As accident would have it, the very first specimen 



such protection. It is, however, certain that the Indian Elephant's want 

 of hair arises from slavery and confinement ; and that in its wild state it is 

 provided with a hairy coat, which is most abundant on the younger ani- 

 mals, and which increases so much in the colder mountain chains, that it 

 is said they are sometimes met with " as hairy as Poodles," according to 

 the expression used by Bishop Heber. This may appear somewhat over- 

 stretched, but Mr. G. Fairholm has instituted the most rigorous inves- 

 tigation on this subject, and has satisfied himself of the fact. Again, if we 

 conclude that this hairiness of the fossil Elephant afford proof of a polar 

 climate in those regions where it dwelt, we must extend this climate over 

 the whole of Southern Europe, throughout which, and particularly in Sicily 

 near Palermo, have I found the bones of the fossil Elephant, with those 

 of the Hippopotamus. And lastly, we must not forget, that even if these 

 animals, thus provided with a thick coat of hair, could withstand the cli- 

 mate of Northern Siberia, such as it is in our time, still the scanty vege- 

 tation of that region could not possibly have afforded adequate nourish- 

 ment to these colossal creatures, that appear to have lived there in consi- 

 derable numbers ; the more so, inasmuch as the Elephant, by reason of its 

 dental provisions, is principally confined to feeding on leaves of trees ; 

 whereas not only all arboreal vegetation is absent throughout a great ex- 

 tent of the polar zone, where these bones are found in vast quantities, but 

 also all vegetation whatever is suspended during a great part of the year. 

 This last objection has been endeavoured to be removed by the supposi- 

 tion that they were migratory animals, which migrated southwards at the 

 approach of winter ; but it seems to be forgotten that it is precisely on the 

 islands of the Frozen Ocean that these bones are found the most abundantly. 



