ON THE EXTINCT MAMMALS OF AUSTRALIA. 237 



the Fauna of a limited space, especiallj' an insular one like Great Britain, the 

 discrepancy between such extinct and existing groups of Mammalia appears 

 to be extreme. Of the smaller quadrupeds, it is true, we still retain the Bat, 

 the Shrew, the Mole, the Badger, the Fox, the Wild Cat, the Otter, the 

 Weasel, the Pole-cat, the Voles, the Hare and Rabbit, the Roe and Red- 

 deer : the Beaver, the Bear and the Wolf have also existed here within the 

 historic period : but only in menageries can we see, in our island, the living re- 

 presentatives of those extinct Elephants, Rhinoceroses, Tigers, Bears, Hyaenas, 

 or diminutive tailless Hares {Lagomys'), which formerly roamed at large over 

 the land. But if we regard Great Britain in connection with the rest of Eu- 

 rope, and extend our view of the geographical distribution of extinct Mam- 

 mals beyond the limits of the continents of geography, — and it needs but a 

 glance at the map to detect the artificial character of the line which divides 

 Europe from Asia, — we shall then find a close and interesting correspondence 

 between the extinct Mammalian Fauna of the latest geological periods and 

 that of the present day. The very fact of the newer pliocene Mammalian 

 Fauna of England being almost as rich in generic and specific forms as that 

 of Europe, leads us to infer that the intersecting branch of the ocean which 

 now divides this island from the continent did not then exist as a bar- 

 rier to the migration of the Mastodons, Mammoths, Rhinoceroses, Hippopo- 

 tamuses, Bisons, Horses, Tigers, Hyaenas, Bears, &c., which have left such 

 abundant traces of their former existence in the superficial unstratified de- 

 posits and caves of Great Britain*. Now, in the Europaeo- Asiatic expanse 

 of dry land, species continue to exist of nearly all those genera which are re- 

 presented by pliocene and post-pliocene Mammalian fossils of the same natural 

 continent and of the immediately adjacent island of Great Britain. The Bear 

 has its haunts in both Europe and Asia ; the Beaver of the Rhone and Da- 

 nube represents the great Trogontherium ; the Lagomys and the Tiger exist 

 on both sides of the Himalayan mountain chain ; the Hyaena ranges through 

 Syria and Hindostan ; the Bactrian Camel typifies the huge Merycolherium 

 of the Siberian drift ; the Elephant and Rhinoceros are still represented in 

 Asia, though now confined to the south of the Himalayas. The more extra- 

 ordinary extinct forms of Mammalia called Elasmotherium and Sivatherium, 

 have their nearest pachydermal and ruminant analogues now existing in the 

 same continent to which those fossils are peculiar. Cuvier places the Elas- 

 mothere between the Horse and Rhinoceros : the existing four-horned Ante- 

 lopes, like their gigantic extinct analogue, are peculiar to India. 



The Mediterranean and Red Seas constitute a less artificial boundary be- 

 tween Africa and the Europaeo-Asiatic continent, than that which, on our 

 maps, divides Europe from Asia ; yet those narrow seas form a slight demar- 

 cation as compared with the vast oceans which divide the old from the new 

 worlds of the geographer, or these from the Australian continents. The 

 continuity of Africa with Asia is still, indeed, preserved by a narrow isthmus, 

 near to which, within the historical period, the Hippopotamus descended, 

 venturing down the Nile, according to Herodotus, almost to its mouth. May 

 it not be regarded as part of the same general concordance of geographical 

 distribution, that the genus Hippopotamus, extinct in England, in Europe 

 and in Asia-f, should continue to be represented in Africa and in none of the 



* See Report of British Fossil Mammalia, Trans. British Association, 1842 and 1843. In 

 the present comparison, I purposely limit myself to the most recent of the tertiaiy epochs. 



t Marsden, in his ' History of Sumatra,' mentions a species of Hippopotamus as still ex- 

 isting in the Sunda Isles ; but this has much need of confirmation : the fossil sub-genus of Hip- 

 popotamus {Hexaprotodon of Cautley and Falconer) gives a new stimulus, however, to the 

 inquiry after the Hippopotamus or Succatyio of the Indian Archipelago. 



