THE NEOZOIC AGES. 257 



cene they were associated with many other species; 

 and these, often of great dimensions, now extinct. 

 In other words, the time from the Pliocene to the 

 Modern, has been a time of diminution of species, 

 while that from the Eocene to the Miocene was a 

 time of rapid introduction of new species. Thus the 

 Tertiary fauna culminated in the Miocene. Yet, 

 strange though this may appear, Man himself, the 

 latest and noblest of all, would seem to have been a 

 product of the later stages of the time of decadence. 

 I propose, however, to return to the animals imme- 

 diately preceding man and his contemporaries, after 

 we have noticed the Tertiary flora and the Glacial 

 period. 



12* 



