CHAPTER , VII. 
EXTINCT MAMMALIA OF THE NEW WORLD. 
THE discoveries of very rich deposits of mammalian remains in 
various parts of the United States have thrown great light on 
the relations of the faunas of very distant regions. North 
America now makes a near approach to Europe in the number 
and variety of its extinct mammalia, and in no part of the world 
have such perfect specimens been discovered. In what are called 
the “ Mauvaises terres” of Nebraska (the dried-up mud of an 
ancient lake), thousands of entire crania and some almost entire 
skeletons of ancient animals have been found, their teeth abso- 
lutely perfect, and altogether more resembling the preparations 
of the anatomist, than time-worn fossils such as we are accus- 
tomed to see in the museums of Europe. Other deposits have 
been discovered in Oregon, California, Virginia, South Carolina, 
Texas, and Utah, ranging over all the Tertiary epochs, from 
Post-Pliocene to Eocene, and furnishing a remarkable picture 
of the numerous strange mammalia which inhabited the ancient 
North American continent. 
NortH AMERICA—PoOSsT-PLIOCENE PERIOD. 
Insectivora—The only indications of this order yet discovered, 
consists of a single tooth of some insectivorous animal found 
in Ilinois, but which cannot be referred to any known group. 
Carnivora—These are fairly represented. ‘Two species ot 
Felis as large as a lion; the equally large extinct Trucifelis, 
found only in Texas ; four species of Canis, some of them larger 
