CHAP, in.] MID MEIOCENE MAMMALIA. 55 



an admirable account of the birds inhabiting the shores 

 of the lower Meiocene lake in the district of the Allier 

 at St. Gerand-le-Puy, Varennes, and other localities. He 

 has described sixty-six species belonging to groups, some 

 of which are no longer found in the region north of the 

 Mediterranean. Parroquets and trogons inhabited the 

 woods ; birds-nest-swifts built their nests in hollows of the 

 rocks, after the fashion of those which one finds at the 

 present time in the Indian Archipelago ; a secretary bird, 

 closely allied to that of the Cape of Good Hope, hunted 

 in the plains the serpents and reptiles which then, as now, 

 must have formed its usual food; and eagles swooped 

 down on their prey. Large marabouts, cranes, flamingoes, 

 and strange extinct birds, Palcelodus, allied to the flamin- 

 goes and the ordinary waders and ibises, haunted the 

 borders of the streams. Pelicans floated in the lakes, while 

 sand-grouse and numerous gallinaceous birds contri- 

 buted to give to this ornithological fauna a most striking 

 character, which reminds us of those pictures which 

 Livingstone has put before us of lakes in southern Africa. 

 The greater part of these birds appear to have nested 

 in the Allier, if they did not inhabit the district through- 

 out the whole year. 



Mid Meiocene Mammalia. 



The remains of the animals found at Sansan and Si- 

 morre * in the south of France, may be taken to represent 

 the mammalia of Europe in the middle stage of the 

 Meiocene period. The following new genera make their 

 appearance. A hog with small canines found his living 

 in the forests, and deer and antelopes, remarkable for 



1 See Appendix II. B. 



