SOME INDIAN MONSTERS. 167 



The great Indian collection of fossils, mainly the gift of Sir Proby 

 Cautley (the specimens of which, stupendous in their size, and in 

 fine preservation, were prepared, identified, and arranged by Dr. 

 Falconer), has long constituted one of the chief ornaments of the 

 collection at the British Museum now removed to the Natural 

 History Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington. 



Other collections of fossils from the Sivalik Hills have been 

 presented to the Museum of Edinburgh University by Colonel 

 Colvin, and to the Oxford University by Mr. Walter Ewer. 

 When it is remembered that these collections have since been 

 increased tenfold, and that the remains were either excavated or 

 found in the debris of cliffs, and that the explored surface bears 

 a very small proportion to that which has not yet been investi- 

 gated, one may conceive how prodigious must have been the 

 number of animals that lived together in the former plains of 

 India, even when every allowance is made for the bones having 

 accumulated during many successive generations in the Sivalik 

 strata. 



From this large and important collection we select two of 

 special interest for brief notice here, namely, the Sivatherium, 1 

 and an immense tortoise known as the Colossochelys. 



The first of these monsters was a remarkable form of animal, 

 unlike anything living. In size it surpassed the largest rhinoceros, 

 and was bigger than any living ruminant. Altogether, it was one 

 of the most remarkable forms of life yet detected in the more 

 recent strata. It had two pairs of horns on its head two short 

 and quite simple ones in front, and two larger ones, more or less 

 expanded, behind them. From the character of these long horn- 

 cores, which are prolongations of the skull, it may be concluded 

 that the Sivatherium was a gigantic ruminant with four horns. 

 A cast of the original skull, with the horn-cores restored from 

 actual parts, in the collection and elsewhere, has been placed on 

 a stand in the centre of the long gallery of fossil vertebrates at 

 1 From Siva, the Hindoo god ; and Greek, therion, a beast. 



