A Day's Ele2)hant Hunting in Essex. 47 



and Cyrena fluminalis seems to-day to be cut oft" from 

 Europe and Northern Asia by nearly the same barriers as 

 those which confine the great pachydermata. It ranges, 

 at the present day, from the Nile through Syria to the 

 Himalayas and China. 



Let us first clearly state what it is we have to ex- 

 plain. The problem is not, How could the musk-ox, 

 mammoth, and reindeer, and the hippopotamus and 

 southern elephant live together in one and the same area 

 during the same year ? It is this. How could these animals 

 frequent one and the same area within such a period of 

 time as would account for their being found in a common 

 grave ? 



Our investigation into the history of the Ilford northern 

 fauna has revealed to us a geographical condition of our 

 country in the Pleistocene period which more than half 

 explains the presence of the sub-tropical species. First, as 

 we have seen, there was in Pleistocene Europe no great 

 physical barrier, such as the modern German Ocean and the 

 Enghsh Channel, shutting off England from the Continent. 

 Our land was joined to the Europasian Continent, and 

 even to Africa. Secondly, Man, although, perhaps, return- 

 ing to the re-born land, had not yet multiplied into the 

 communities which have since gradually restricted the 

 range of the ferce naturce, reducing their numbers and extir- 

 pating whole species. 



The migrant tendencies of animals were doubly favoured 

 in this Continental Period of our land's history. The geo- 

 graphical arrangements were, perhaps, the most favourable 

 that can be conceived for enabling animals to visit the 

 extreme limit of their climatal range, and no great human 

 populations yet disputed their possession. 



There were doubtless times when, for years in succession, 

 the glaciers had disappeared, the climate was equable, and 

 summer and winter were no longer marked by wide differ- 

 ences of temperature. That these episodes were not of 

 long duration is shown by the mingling together of the 

 bones of hippopotamus and mammoth m. the same level of 

 the old river-beds in which they are found fossil to-day. A 



