208 A BOOK-LOVER'S HOLIDAYS 



I mean an^^ existing species of horse, ass, or 

 zebra, and any one of the numerous similar ex- 

 tinct species which may have belonged to any 

 one of these three types, or have been inter- 

 mediate between any two of them, or perhaps 

 have been somewhat different from all of them. 

 As thus used, the words horse, lion, and elephant 

 are scientifically of nearly equivalent value. 



The only region in which these three animals 

 were not found during Pleistocene times was 

 Australia, which was given over wholly to a 

 relatively insignificant and undeveloped fauna 

 of marsupials and into which it is probable 

 that man did not intrude until at a late period. 

 Everywhere else, from Patagonia to the Cape of 

 Good Hope, including regions now faunistically 

 as utterly unlike as Peru, California, Alaska, 

 Siberia, Asia Minor, France, and Algiers, they 

 abounded, many different and peculiar species 

 being found. The Pleistocene gradually be- 

 came part of the Age of Man; but at first it 

 was emphatically the Age of the Horse, the 

 Lion, and the Elephant, and the two ages over- 

 lapped for a very long period. The lion was 

 primitive man's most deadly foe, as to this 

 day is the case in parts of Africa. He feared 

 the lion, and avoided him, and warred upon 

 him, until gradually he got a little the upper 



