OLD WORLD AFFINITIES 373 



Eocene times. He thought that south-western Africa later on 

 became united with eastern Africa, thus enabling some of 

 these ancient mammals of South American origin to spread 

 northward towards Europe and eastward into Asia. But both 

 the Manidae and the Orycteropidae are represented in the 

 Eocene deposits of southern Europe, while the genus Orycte- 

 ropus lived in Samos and on the mainland of Greece in Miocene 

 times. Moreover,* neither Manis nor Orycteropus are confined 

 to southern Africa. Both are distributed north-eastward as 

 far as Kordofan and Senaar. It seems more likely, therefore, 

 that these edentates, like the hystricomorphous rodents just 

 alluded to, have originated in the Mediterranean region from 

 South American ancestors and have spread southward subse- 

 quently. 



The same problem has also been discussed by Dr. Andrews* 

 as the result of his remarkable discoveries of fossil mammals 

 in the Fayum of Egypt. All the Carnivora he found there 

 belonged to that archaic group known as the " Creodonta." 

 He argues that the presence of these creodonts in Africa would 

 account for the existence of the " Sparassodonta " in Pata- 

 gonia, if we assumed that during the remote period when these 

 ancient groups originated, Africa and South America had 

 been joined to one another by land. He also brings forward 

 another testimony in support of his suggestion, which I shall 

 deal with later on. As for the Creodonta, they are so amply 

 represented in the early Tertiaries of both North America and 

 Europe, that the assumption of a mid- Atlantic land bridge is 

 sufficient to explain their presence in these continents as well 

 as in Egypt, while Patagonia must have had some land con- 

 nection with North America in late Cretaceous or early 

 Eocene times. 



The- distribution of birds does not give us many definite 

 suggestions as to former land connections between South 

 America and Africa. The range of the parrots (Psittacidae), 

 however, points to an affinity between these continents. A 

 more striking example seems to be that of the ostrich and 

 rhea. The former inhabits exclusively Africa and Arabia, the 

 other Argentina and Brazil. Hence we might be tempted to 



* Andrews, C. W., " Tertiary Vertebrates of the Fayum," p. xxii. 



