362 HISTORICAL PALZONTOLOGY. 
the South American continent — namely, the “ Platyrhine” 
Monkeys. 
We still have very briefly to consider the occurrence of 
Man in Post-Pliocene deposits ; but before doing so, it will be 
well to draw attention to the evidence afforded by the Post- 
Pliocene Mammals as to the climate of Western Europe at 
this period. The chief point which we have to notice is, that 
a considerable revolution of opinion has taken place on this 
point. It was originally believed that the presence of such 
animals as Elephants, Lions, the Rhinoceros, and the Hippo- 
potamus afforded an irrefragable proof that the climate of 
Europe must have been a warm one, at any rate during Post- 
Glacial times. The existence, also, of numbers of Mammoths: 
in Siberia, was further supposed to indicate that this high tem- 
perature extended itself very far north. Upon the whole, how- 
ever, the evidence is against this view. Not only is there great 
difficulty in supposing that the Arctic conditions of the Glacial 
period were immediately followed by anything warmer than a 
cold-temperate climate; but there is nothing in the nature of 
the Mammals themselves which would absolutely forbid their 
living ina temperate climate. The zppofotamus major, though 
probably clad in hair, offers some difficulty—since, as pointed 
out by Professor Busk, it must have required a climate suffi- 
ciently warm to insure that the rivers were not frozen over in the 
winter; but it was probably a migratory animal, and its occur- 
rence may be accounted for by this. The Woolly Rhinoceros 
and the Mammoth are known with certainty to have been pro- 
tected with a thick covering of wool and hair; and their ex- 
tension northwards need not necessarily have been limited by 
anything except the absence of a sufficiently luxuriant vege- 
tation to afford them food. The great American Mastodon, 
though not certainly known to have possessed a hairy covering, 
has been shown to have lived upon the shoots of Spruce and 
Firs, trees characteristic of temperate regions—as shown by the 
undigested food which has been found with its skeleton, oc- 
cupying the place of the stomach. The Lions and Hyeenas, 
again, as shown by Professor Boyd Dawkins, do not indicate 
necessarily a warm climate. Wherever a sufficiency of her- 
bivorous-animals to supply them with food can live, there they 
can live also; and they have therefore no special bearing upon 
the question of climate. After a review of the whole evidence, 
Professor Dawkins concludes that the nearest approach at the 
present day to the Post-Pliocene climate of Western’ Europe 
is to be found in the climate of the great Siberian plains which 
stretch from the Altai Mountains to the Frozen Sea. ‘Covered 
