EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



trees of California, 400 feet in height and 25 or 

 more in thickness, flourished all over Europe, 

 from Italy to Norway. Along with these there 

 were cycads, fan-palms, palmettos, figs, laurels 

 and myrtles, poplars, oaks, lindens and maples, 

 acacias and elms, camphors and cinnamons and 

 sandalwood ; while ivies and bignonias grew in 

 great luxuriance. Cranes, flamingoes, and peli- 

 cans were common, as also geese, herons, phea- 

 sants, paroquets, and eagles. But the mammals, 

 in this as in the preceding epoch, present the 

 most instructive subject of study. Opossums 

 were still present, but had vanished before the 

 middle of the period ; and a few existing genera 

 of placental mammals had come upon the scene. 

 There were tapirs and small rhinoceroses, as well 

 as squirrels, moles, and hedgehogs, and carni- 

 vores similar to the weasels and civets. Collat- 

 eral ancestors of the deer and antelope roamed 

 about in large herds, and by the middle of the 

 period had begun to acquire small horns and 

 antlers. In mid-Miocene times the anchitheres 

 disappeared, and were succeeded by the hip- 

 parion, much nearer in structure to the horse. 

 The mastodon came in about the same time, 

 and with him another elephant-like creature, 

 the deinotherium, who lived in the water like 

 a hippopotamus. Carnivores of the cat family 

 reached their highest point of development as 

 regards size and power in the middle and upper 



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