336 THE HOLARCTIC REGION. [CHAP. 



Zittel 1 considers them pre-glacial, or more probably inter-glacial. 

 If they are either inter- or post-glacial, it is clear that the cold was 

 not the exterminating cause ; and it is quite possible that many 

 or all were killed off by man, although this could scarcely be the 

 case with the Siberian fauna. 



Be this as it may, there is good evidence that when northern 

 forms, such as the reindeer, wolverene, and banded lemming, had 

 once obtained an entrance into central and southern Europe, they 

 remained there for a considerable time, since they were present 

 during the latter portion of what is known as the palaeolithic 

 epoch. With the advent of the present climatic conditions came 

 in the present woodland fauna of central Europe, constituting 

 what has been termed the squirrel- or bison-epoch ; and from that 

 date, when animals became domesticated, man has exercised a 

 large influence on the fauna. 



It is important to notice that, in spite of the mingling of 

 northern and southern types in England, France, and Germany, to 

 which allusion has already been made, there seems to have been 

 a distinction between the northern and the Mediterranean fauna 

 throughout the whole of the later Plistocene epoch, such forms as 

 the Barbary sheep and the fallow-deer being essentially southern, 

 although the hippopotamus, as we have seen, extended as far 

 north as Yorkshire. 



Although the later Plistocene fauna was spread not only over 

 Europe, but also through North and Central Asia, a number of 

 the characteristic European types, such as the hippopotamus, ibex, 

 chamois, fallow-deer, cave-bear, and wild cat, were wanting in 

 Asia. In that area forms are met with which are still character- 

 istic of the same districts. As examples may be noticed : the 

 Mongolian gazelle (Gazella gutturosd], the Himalayan ibex (Capra 

 sibirica), the Persian wild goat (Capra cegagrus), the argali (Ovis 

 argali), the musk-deer (Moschus moschiferus], the tiger (Felts 

 tigris] of which the remains have been found even within the 

 Arctic Circle together with a number of smaller forms, such as 

 Siphneus aspalax, Ellobius talpinus, Spalax typhlus, Sminthus 

 vagans, Tamias asiaticus, and Mustela zibellina. Here, then, 



1 Appendix, No. 36, p. 189. 



