228 



GEOGRAPHICAL ZOOLOGY. 



[PART iv. 



discovered. Elephants ranged over all the Palsearctic and 

 Nearctic regions in Post-Pliocene times ; in Europe and Central 

 India they go back to the Pliocene ; and only in India to the 

 Upper Miocene period ; the number of species increasing as we 

 go back to the older formations. 



In North America two or three species of Mastodon are Post- 

 pliocene and Pliocene ; and a species is found in the caves of 

 Brazil, and in the Pliocene deposits of the pampas of La Plata, 

 of the Bolivian Andes, and of Honduras and the Bahamas. 

 In Europe the genus is Upper Miocene and Pliocene, but is espe- 

 cially abundant in the former period. In the East, it extends 

 from Perim island to Burmah and over all India, and is mostly 

 Miocene, but with perhaps one species Pliocene in Central 

 India. 



An account of the range of such animals as belong to extinct 

 families of Proboscidea, will be found in Chapters VI. and YIT. ; 

 from which it will be seen that, although the family Elephantidse 

 undoubtedly originated in the Eastern Hemisphere, it is not 

 improbable that the first traces of the order Proboscidea are to 

 be found in N. America. 



Order IX.HYRACOIDEA. 



FAMILY 54. HYEACID^E. (1 Genus. 10-12 Species.) 

 GENERAL DISTRIBUTION. 



The genus Hyrax, which alone constitutes this family, consists 

 of small animals having the appearance of hares or marmots, 

 but which more resemble the genus Rhinoceros in their teeth and 

 skeleton. They range all over the Ethiopian region, except Mada- 

 gascar ; a peculiar species is found in Fernando Po, and they 

 just enter the Palsearctic as far as Syria. They may therefore 

 be considered as an exclusively Ethiopian group. In Dr. Gray's 



