XX1V INTRODUCTION. 
Three kinds of wild Oxen, two of which were of colossal 
size and strength, and one of these maned and villous like 
the Bonassus, found subsistence in the plains. Deer, as gi- 
gantic in proportion to existing species, were the contem- 
poraries of the old Uri and Bisontes, and may have disputed 
with them the pasturage of that ancient land: one of 
these extinct Deer is well known under the name of “‘ Irish 
Elk,” by the enormous expanse of its broad-palmed ant- 
lers; * another had horns more like those of the Wapiti, 
but surpassed that great Canadian Deer in bulk; a third 
extinct species more resembled the Indian Hippelaphus ; 
and with these were associated the Red-deer, the Rein-deer, 
the Roe-buck, and the Goat. A Wild Horse, a Wild Ass 
or Quagga, and the Wild Boar, entered also into the 
series of British Pliocene hoofed Mammalia. 
The Carnivora, organized to enjoy a life of rapine at 
the expense of the vegetable-feeders, to restrain their 
undue increase, and abridge the pangs of the maimed and 
sickly, were duly adjusted in numbers, size, and ferocity 
to the fell task assigned to them in the organic economy 
of the pre-Adamitic world. Besides a British Tiger of 
larger size, and with proportionally larger paws than that 
of Bengal, there existed a stranger Feline animal (Ma- 
chairodus) of equal size, which, from the great length and 
sharpness of its sabre-shaped canines, was probably the 
most ferocious and destructive of its peculiarly carnivorous 
family. Of the smaller Felines we recognise the remains 
of a Leopard or large Lynx, and of a Wild Cat. 
Troops of Hyeenas, larger than the fierce Crocuta of 
South Africa, which they most resembled, crunched the 
bones of the carcases relinquished by the nobler beasts of 
prey ; and, doubtless, often themselves waged the war of 
* See cut in Title-page, and fig. 182. 
