2OO EASTERN ARCTOG^A. [CHAP. 



tants of open plains, were likewise abundant ; one being considered 

 a near relative of the South African springbok. The genus 

 Helicophora, on the other hand, closely resembles the water-buck 

 group (Cobus), which is exclusively Ethiopian. In the perisso- 

 dactyle division, the three-toed horses (Hipparion) seem to have 

 approximated in general structure to the Ethiopian zebras, and, 

 like those animals, may have been ornamented with dark and light 

 stripes. While some of the Pliocene rhinoceroses were hornless, 

 another was a two-horned species closely allied to the common 

 African Rhinoceros bicornis, of which it may be regarded as the 

 parent form. There is also an extinct genus (Leptodon), of some- 

 what uncertain affinity ; while tapirs are found in the Eppelsheim 

 beds, although not apparently in the southern area. The Chalico- 

 theriidft were represented by the typical genus Chalicotherium 

 (Ancylotheriuni), which, as we have seen, was a near ally of the 

 Miocene Ma cr other him, and also occurs in the Oligocene phos- 

 phorites. As in the Miocene, the proboscideans include only 

 Mastodon and Dinotherium; the one species of the former ranging 

 from Greece to Persia, but being different from all the Indian forms 

 of the same epoch. Finally, the occurrence of an aard-vark 

 (Orycteropus] both in Samos and Persia serves to accentuate the 

 Ethiopian affinities of the southern section of this fauna. 



We have thus evidence that one and the same fauna extended 

 from Spain and Algeria across Southern Europe to Asia Minor 

 and Persia; and we may infer from the deposits at Samos, that 

 what is now the y-Egean sea formed a tract of land connecting 

 Greece with Turkey. It is further evident that there must have 

 been free communication across the Mediterranean basin (which 

 in Cretaceous times is known to have been a mare clausnm, in the 

 physical, and not the political sense of the term) between Europe 

 and Africa. This communication may have existed both by way 

 of Gibraltar, and also between Italy, Sicily, and Malta on the 

 one hand, and Tunis on the other; since the Plistocene mammals 

 of the islands in question clearly indicate continental connection. 

 While the antelopes and hipparions of this fauna prove the exist- 

 ence of open plains during the lower Pliocene epoch, the host of 

 individuals of Mesopithecus as unmistakeably point to the presence 

 of extensive forest-tracts. In the northern section of the fauna, as 



