88 MAMMALS. 



Some authors, indeed, have attempted to distinguish the fossil reindeer from that now living in 

 the North of Europe and Asia, and have supposed that it was a species peculiar to Central Europe, and 

 separated from the Northern species by a geographical lacune. This view is not adopted, however, by 

 the majority of palasontologists. Greater variation exists between different individuals of the 

 existing reindeer than between them and the fossil sjsecies ; and as to the geographical lacune 

 in their distribution, M. Lartet * points out that nearly a century ago, when Pallas travelled in the 

 south of Russia, he found them advancing southwards along the Ural mountains, and speaks of 

 them being killed every year near Mount Caucasus. Besides, this objection does not apply to the 

 still stronger case of the musk-ox. 



On this subject it is not irrelevant to state my belief, that whatever may be the cause, the 

 climate has improved, and in a general way still continues to do so, ever since the days of 

 the glacial epoch (always excepting occasional, perhaps cyclical, variations which may have been 

 due to general causes affecting the whole globe). The glaciers in Switzerland, with some oscil- 

 lations, are retreating on the whole. The accounts which Tacitus, Caesar, and other ancient 

 writers, give of Germany, France, and Britain (Ireland is spoken of as "frozen Erin")t suggest 

 a less favourable climate than these comitries now possess. There seems to be a diminution, 

 too, in the energy of the people of Southern Europe, since the days v.'hen their ancestors carried 

 all before them ; and we know that energy and the vis vidrix are the attributes of climates with 

 a certain degree of cold. Heat relaxes the human machinery, not only in those born in cold 

 climates, but still more in the natives of warm ones ; cold braces it up. That conquering power 

 has gone forth from the Greeks and the Romans, the Moors and the Spaniards, and migrated 

 to more northerly people. It is a fair and an open question, though all too large for discussion 

 here, and there is no lack of argiunents on the other side, such as that the temples and buildings 

 left by these nations are all conformable to such climates as now subsist in their coimtries, that 

 wine was formerly made from the grape grown in the open air in the south of England, and that 

 corn grew in Iceland ; but, as at present advised, I incline to think these excej)tions are capable 

 of being explained away, and that the arguments in favour of a continued amelioration of 

 climate are strongest. 



Besides the above-mentioned animals, the Cave lion lived contemporaneously, probably, with all 

 the following species, viz. with the Cave bear, the Cave hyoena, the mammoth, the so-called woolly- 

 haired rhinoceros, a large hippopotamus, the Irish elk, and various smaller animals. M. Lartet 

 divides the recent or quaternarj^ ejioch into four periods, each characterised by these animals, thus, — 



1. The period of the Cave bear, which he thinks appeared first, and became extinct first. 



2. The period of the mammoth and rhinoceros. 



3. The period of the reindeer ; and 



4. That of the aurochs. 



Remains of the Cave lion have been found in caves associated with remains of the animals 

 which lived in all the three first periods. 



It appears, also, to have continued alive in Eurojae until a comparatively recent period, although 



* Lahtet's " Aunales des Soc," 1841. 

 t " — - Maduerunt Saxone fuso 

 Orcades, inoaluit Pictorum sanguine Thule, 

 Scotorum cumulcs flevit ijlacialis lerne'' — Claudi.\n. 



