MATTHEW, CLIMATE AND EVOLUTION 



219 



and more or less arid climate is of primaiy importance in explaining 

 their present do^minance and cosmopolitanism, their close association with 

 man, their absence from Madagascar and other oceanic islands; and it 

 makes it most probable that the introduction of the dingo to Australia 

 was through human agency although undoubtedly as early as the late 

 Pleistocene. In their adaptation and distribution this family of Car- 

 nivora largely parallels the Equidffi among Perissodactyla. 



Table II. — Distrihution of the Canidw 



*2 Fayflm fauna, Egypt. Although this locality is uot to-day within the Ethiopian 

 province. Its fossil mammals are generally regarded as representing the Ethiopian and 

 not the Mediterranean fauna of the Oligocene. My own impression with regard to it is 

 that It is transitional, as the Egyptian fauna is to-day, but dominantly Ethiopian instead 

 of dominantly Mediterranean. 



