226 MOSTLY MAMMALS 



If such were really the case, we should indeed be living 

 in an impoverished epoch of the world's history ; but if 

 we take the term "present" in not too narrow a sense, 

 and also bear in mind that Europe, and such other parts 

 of the world as have been more or less thickly populated 

 for untold ages, scarcely form a fair basis of comparison, 

 it will be manifest that the idea in question is to a con- 

 siderable extent due to misconceptions and inaccuracies of 

 the nature of those referred to above. 



It is true that in certain portions of the world the 

 larger forms of animal life disappeared at an epoch when 

 man can scarcely be regarded as having taken a promi- 

 nent part in their extermination ; a notable example of this 

 kind being South America, where the huge ground-sloths, 

 toxodons, and macrauchenias of the latter part of the 

 Tertiary epoch disappeared with seeming suddenness in 

 what is to us an unaccountable manner. The extermi- 

 nation of the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, and the 

 hippopotamus from Europe, although partly, perhaps, 

 attributable to climatic change, has not improbably been 

 accelerated by man's influence; and the same may be true 

 with regard to some of the larger mammals of ancient 

 India. 



In the latter country we have, however, still the Indian 

 elephant, the great one-horned rhinoceros, and the wild 

 buffalo, which, although not actually the largest repre- 

 sentatives of their kind, are yet enormous animals. In 

 Africa the presence of animals of large corporeal bulk is 

 more noticeable. Although the extinct elephant of the 

 Norfolk " forest-bed " is stated to have been the biggest 

 of its tribe, it is very doubtful if it was really larger 

 than the living African elephant; and the so-called white 

 rhinoceros, in the days of its abundance, was certainly not 



