86 MAMMALS. 



If these data can be held to represent at all fairly the former range of carnivorous animals, 

 they suggest the possibility of a remarkable difference between their ancient and their modem 

 distribution ; viz., that their origin is northern, and that their ijresence in Africa, one of the 

 regions in which they now chiefly flourish, is possibly of comparatively recent date. 



In the first place, if the assumption is correct that Africa had always been wholly detached 

 from Exu'ope until after the glacial epoch, the occurrence of a species in the one country would 

 be jjfima facie evidence against its being found in the other, because it could only inhabit both, 

 either by some communication having existed between the two (which is against our special 

 premises), or by a double creation, or duplicate specific centre (which is against our general 

 premises) . 



It is a natural assumption that, because feline remains have been foimd in the SevaKk beds, 

 feline animals must then have lived in India, and, probably, ranged over the whole suj)posed 

 continent between India and Africa, and so supplied Africa. We cannot prove that they did not. 

 No one can prove a negative ; but we can show that the Sevalik remains do not prove the 

 affirmative. 



A Sevalik sea separated India from Northern Asia, in the line of the Himmalayahs, Avhich had 

 not yet appeared ; for the beds, which they were to tilt up, were only then being deposited. Now, 

 a mioceue sea, like every other sea, must have at least two sides ; and the question comes to be, 

 from which side, not all the animals found in the Sevalik counti'y, but this particular form of 

 animal, tmublod in. The inference sui'ely ought to be, from the side on which Carnivora were 

 known to exist — not from that where their remains have never been found. We know that they 

 existed in the northern hemisphere previous to the glacial epoch, not only because their remains have 

 been there met with, but because they must have been the stock out of which the present type was 

 develojDcd when the glacial change came. But, moreover, if tlie subsidence of the supposed con- 

 tinent between India and Africa was simultaneous with, and part of, the same action as that which 

 sunk a bed for the Sevalik sea, (which is possible) Africa may have been disunited from India 

 prior to the apj^earance of the miocene Carnivora whose remains are found in the Sevalik beds ; 

 and thus, even although they inhabited the south of the Sevalik sea, as well as the north, they 

 may have been equally excluded from Africa. 



The converse of this is the case with the Antelopes, which have marked Africa for their own. 

 Only a few stragglers, of perhaps recent date, are found beyond its bounds and those of India ; and 

 I have not met with a single well-determined and undisputed instance of fossil remains of Ante- 

 lopes being found in the northern hemisphere. 



AVe have thus apparently the singular fact rendered probable that Africa, at least, was free from 

 carnivorous animals until after the glacial eijoch, and that the herds of Ruminants and Pachyderms 

 enjoyed an Elj^sian existence — a sort of Garden of Eden, into which death never penetrated; at 

 least in the guise which they now most dread. I have heard very excellent discourses on the beauty 

 of the balance of life, whereby the excessive increase of one animal is kept within bomids by the 

 destructive instincts of another ; and very generally the Lion and the Ruminant wound up and 

 gave point to the argument. But we see that no such compensation-balance is now needed orused 

 in South America, where the herds of cattle and horses roam unchecked by the Puma or the Wolf, 

 which are unequal to the task of subduing them. I have, therefore, less hesitation in believing that 

 the same may have hajjpened in former times in Africa. 



As a communication subsisted in tliose times between Europe and North America, and between 



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