11 



change with regard to animal terrestrial-life, took 

 place at this time, the diminutive marsupial mammals 

 of the mesozoic age were succeeded by large placental 

 herbivors, mostly pachydermous Palceotherium^ 

 Lophiodon, Anoplotherium, and Xiphodon with several 

 rodents and bats. The preponderance of these 

 pachyderms in the eocene forests may be accounted for 

 by the paucity of carnivors. The London clays of 

 Sheppey contain fruits and seeds of palms belonging 

 to the recent type Nipa, now only found in the salt- 

 marshes of Malacca, the Philippine Islands, and 

 Bengal. We have now arrived at the horizon of the 

 Alum Bay and Bournemouth beds, the latter of which, 

 through the industry of Mr. J. E. Gardner, have 

 yielded a large and highly interesting flora, including 

 Proteacece, Dryandrce, Stenocarpus, cinnamon, and 

 other Lauraceae, Eucalyptus, azalias, figs, beech, 

 maples, papilonacece, cactus, aroids, conifers, and ferns, 

 also fruits of Nipites, marine shells, a freshwater shell 

 of the genus Unio, with shore-crabs, also another 

 crustacean Callianassa, which has its living repre- 

 sentative, C. subterranea. Leach., on the Devon coast 

 attesting the passage from marine, brackish and fresh 

 water. Some of the types are now residents in 

 Southern Africa and India, their association with types 

 of the temperate zone may be traced to an approxima- 

 tion of high land to the seas or lakes into which the 

 rivers carried them. A similar condition of plant-life 

 may now be seen at Teneriffe, which lies at the very 

 threshold of the tropics. Humbolt, in a description of 



