CHAPTER XL 



SOME INDIAN MONSTERS. 



" What a glorious privilege it would be, could we live back were it but 

 for an instant into those ancient times when these extinct animals peopled 

 the earth ! to see them all congregated together in one grand natural 

 menagerie these mastodons and elephants, so numerous in species, toiling 

 their ponderous forms and trumpeting their march in countless herds through 

 the swamps and reedy forests ! " HUGH FALCONER. 



IT is a far cry back, against the sun's path, from Wyoming and 

 the flanks of the Rocky Mountains to the sacred Himalayas the 

 " abode of snow " of Northern India. But if the reader will follow 

 us to that country, we will endeavour to describe two or three out 

 of many strange and now lost forms of life brought to light from 

 the famous Sivalik Hills, on the southern border of the Himalayas, 

 for the knowledge of which Science is greatly indebted to a 

 very distinguished palaeontologist, the late Mr. Hugh Falconer. 

 Together with his friend Captain Cautley (afterwards Sir Proby 

 Cautley), he explored this region, and their joint arduous labours 

 show that it was at one time inhabited by a very large and varied 

 group of quadrupeds, together with many birds, reptiles, fishes, 

 mollusca, and crustaceans. 



In this region there lived, throughout a considerable part of the 

 Tertiary period, elephants, of various species, whose skulls and 

 bones were found in great numbers ; mastodons (a closely allied 

 form) ; and several species of hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and 

 horse : among ruminants, species of the camel, the ox, the 



