IX.] EASTERN PLISTOCENE FAUNA. 335 



tusked elephant (E. antiquus) is a more southern Plistocene 

 type, of which the molars are to a certain extent intermediate 

 between those of the living Indian and African species. Still 

 more southerly in its distribution is the gigantic southern elephant 

 (E. meridionalis), of which the remains are found in the upper 

 Pliocene of Italy, as well as in the Plistocene Forest-bed of 

 Norfolk, and equivalent strata at Dewlish, in Dorsetshire. The 

 Maltese Islands were the habitat during the Plistocene epoch of 

 the two or three species of dwarf elephants, which appear to have 

 been nearly allied to the existing African species, but whose size 

 was diminished by the smallness of the areas where they flourished. 

 Lastly, the African elephant, which is now restricted to Ethiopian 

 Africa, has left evidence of its existence during the Plistocene 

 epoch in Algeria, Spain, and Sardinia. 



The fauna of the Forest-bed period, among which the mam- 

 moth, megarhine rhinoceros, and Irish deer are wanting, is, as 

 already stated, of pre-glacial age, and, on the whole, indicative of a 

 fairly warm climate, although there is some evidence that the 

 musk-ox then ranged as far south as England. At the close of 

 this epoch, the southern elephant, together with a small bear 

 known as Ursus arvernensis, appear to have become extinct. Soon 

 after, glacial conditions made their appearance, causing much dis- 

 turbance and migratory movements among the original southern 

 pre-glacial fauna, and bringing an incursion of northern forms like 

 the reindeer, Arctic fox, wolverene, and musk-ox, as well as of 

 species from the eastern steppes such as the Saiga antelope and 

 the Kirghiz jerboa (Alactagd), together with mountain animals like 

 the chamois, the ibex, and the marmot, into the lowlands of south- 

 western Europe. Among the northern forms that then spread 

 themselves southward were the mammoth and the woolly rhino- 

 ceros, which at this epoch appear to have attained their maximum 

 development. 



Unfortunately, there is much uncertainty as to the part played 

 by the glacial epoch in the extermination of the large mammals 

 characterising Plistocene Europe. By most English geologists the 

 brick-earths of the Thames valley, which contain remains of rhino- 

 ceroses and elephants in abundance, as well as those of monkeys 

 more sparingly, are regarded as of post-glacial age ; but Prof, von 



