IX.] EASTERN PLISTOCENE FAUNA. 333 



related to the living Cape species. Among the rodents, it is 

 only necessary to mention that the giant beaver (Trogontheriuni) 

 represents a distinct genus ranging from the Norfolk Forest-bed to 

 Siberia; and also that the Maltese squirrel (Leithia) was restricted 

 to the islands from which it takes its name. In the ungulates, 

 the aurochs l was the gigantic ancestor of the domestic cattle of 

 the present day, but is unknown living in a wild state. The arui, 

 or Barbary sheep, is now restricted to north Africa; while the 

 Spanish ibex is confined to the mountains of the Iberian penin- 

 sula, its fossil remains occurring in the Gibraltar caves. The Irish 

 deer, distinguished by its great size and widely-spreading antlers, 

 was an ally of the fallow-deer, with which it is connected by 

 means of another extinct species or variety (C. ntffi); and it may 

 be mentioned that there are species of extinct deer from the 

 Forest-bed, which it is unnecessary to name in this place. The 

 latter deposits are the source of the known remains of the English 

 gazelle. The common hippopotamus, which dates from the upper 

 Pliocene of Italy, is now exclusively confined to Ethiopian Africa, 

 but in the Plistocene is known to have wandered as far north as 

 Yorkshire. Pentland's hippopotamus is a smaller species from 

 Italy and the Mediterranean islands, where there may be a second 

 still smaller form. Of the rhinoceroses, R. antiqiiitatis, which is 

 exclusively Plistocene, ranged from Central Europe to Siberia ; its 

 remains being dredged abundantly, in common with those of the 

 mammoth, from the Dogger Bank, in the North Sea. The relation- 

 ship of this species to the extinct Indian Rhinoceros platyrhinus 

 and the living African R. simus has been alluded to in a previous 

 chapter. The other three European species of the genus, which, 

 like the last, were two-horned and devoid of front teeth, date from 

 the Pliocene, and form a group differing remarkably in dental 

 characters from R. antiquitatis. While two of these species were 

 southern types, the third accompanied the mammoth and woolly 

 rhinoceros in Siberia. A near ally of the rhinoceroses, the huge 

 Siberian Elasmotherium, differed remarkably in the structure of its 

 cheek-teeth, which are tall-crowned, and shew some approximation 

 to those of the horses. 



1 The European bison is frequently miscalled the aurochs. 



