296 THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE ANIMAL WORLD 



and Boreal Masses. It is thus that, towards the 

 end of Primary times, especially at the Permian 

 epoch, connections established between Africa and 

 Western Europe, perhaps through the region of 

 Spain and the Pyrenees, opened the passage from 

 one Continent to the other for certain of the most 

 remarkable terrestrial Reptiles. Among these types, 

 belonging to the great order of the Theromorphs, 

 I shall mention the Dicynodons, huge lacertiform 

 reptiles with rounded cranium, one pair only of 

 long sloping canines, and cranian profile resembling 

 somewhat that of a walrus. These strange Dicy- 

 nodons abound in the sandstone deposits of the 

 upper Permian and of the Trias of South Africa 

 (near Karroo), which is probably their original home. 

 Thence they appear to have emigrated, on the one 

 hand, into Hindustan, on the other into Scotland, 

 where they were discovered, much to our surprise, 

 in the Triassic sandstone of Elgin. 



More recently a Russian scholar, Amalitzky, has 

 discovered them in the upper Permian of the banks 

 of the Dwina, a tributary of the White Sea, that is 

 to say, near the eastern extremity of the great 

 Continent of the Northern Hemisphere. 



A second group of Theromorphs, not less re- 

 markable, the Pareiasauridce, accompanied the 

 Dicynodons in their migration. The Pareiasauri 

 were reptiles with a short, flat head, having jaws 

 with a continuous row of many cutting teeth, a 

 short tail, and a skin covered with large thick scales. 

 Their centre of origin seems also to have been 

 Southern Africa, where they abound in the Permian 

 and Triassic formation of Karroo. As in the case 



