THE BRITISH MAMMALS PAST AND PRESENT. 83 



will be noticed, included no marsupials, for by this time these would 

 appear to have moved out of the area never again to return to it. 



The Older Pliocene of Europe contains a large assemblage of 

 mammals of species mostly extinct, but many of them conveniently 

 filling up the gaps between existing genera. But in this country 

 where the formation is so poorly represented we have had none 

 of the apes, cats, civets, foxes, bears, oxen, deer, antelopes, rhino- 

 ceroses, hippopotamuses, horses, beavers, mice, porcupines, hares, 

 etc., the only mammalian remains being yielded by the shelly 

 sands, known as the Coralline Crag, and confined to two hump- 

 back whales of the same genus as the living species, these being 

 Megaptera affinis and M. minuta, which was not so very minute, as 

 it was as large as the Lesser Rorqual. 



Of the Newer Pliocene, made up with us of the other Crags 

 with the Forest- Bed on the top, there is another story to tell. The 

 Red Crag, at the base, is one of the richest hunting grounds known 

 to the geologist. From it have come Felis pardoides, an early form 

 of leopard, the extinct Hycenti- antiqua, and flytena striata the living 

 striped hyaena of India and North Africa, Cam's primigenius, an early 

 form of the wolf, and, doubtfully, Vuipes vulgaris, the existing fox, 

 who must be mentioned, although it is not unlikely that the 

 specimen got into its place by burrowing. Add to these the bear-like 

 Hycznarctos and Urstts arvcrnensis, the giant panda, ^Elurus anglicus, 

 of a genus now known only in the Himalaya, and Trichechus huxleyi, 

 an extinct species of walrus. The rodents are represented by a 

 large beaver, Castor veterior, and the beaver-like form, Trogontherium 

 minus : the ungulates by the two-forked 'muntjac, Cervulus dicran- 

 occros ; one of the Anoplotheres, Xiphodon platyceps ; two swine, the 

 large Sus ' antiquus, and the small 5. palceocharus ; a tapir (Tapirus 

 prisons) ; one of the three-toed horses (Hipparion gracile) ; two rhino- 

 ceroses (Rhinoceros incisivus and R. schleiermacheri) ; and no less 

 than four elephants (Mastodon arvernensis, M. borsoni, M. longirostris, 

 and Elephas meridionalis). The sirenians, otherwise the mermaids, 

 have a representative in Haliiherium canhami, their first and only 

 appearance in the British fauna ; and, as if to leave no doubt as to 

 the conditions under which the Crag was formed, come quite a 

 crowd of whales, probably enclosed within the shallow sea when in 

 pursuit of food, unless, when dead, they were drifted in by some 

 powerful current. Among them are four right whales (Baltena affinis, 



B. balcenopsis, B. insignis, and B. primigenia), two humpbacks (Meg- 

 aptera affinis, as in the Coralline Crag, and M. similis), four rorquals 

 (Balanoptera borealina, B. definita, B. emarginata, and B. garopi),iour 

 species of the extinct genus Cetotherium (C. brialmonti, C. dubium, 



C. brevifrons, C. hupschi), and the small Herpetocetus scaldiensis, whose 

 affinity with the toothed whales is indicated by the long talon of the 

 mandibular condyle. Reckoning up these species, it will be found 

 that we have no less than fifteen whalebone whales, and to these we 

 must add some twenty-three toothed whales, making thirty-eight in 

 all. Verily, whales must have thriven in the days of the Newer 

 Pliocene! Here are Kogia breviceps, the small sperm whale still 

 existent ; Physetenila dubusi, another small edition of the sperm 

 whale ; Eucetus amblyodon, closely allied, of which there are a large 



