XV111 INTRODUCTION. 



from all known existing quadrupeds. By these restora- 

 tions the Naturalist was first made acquainted with the 

 aquatic cloven-hoofed animal which Cuvier has called Ano- 

 plothere, and with its light and graceful congeners, the 

 Dichobunes and Xiphiodon, with the great Palaeotheres, 

 which may be likened to hornless Rhinoceroses, with the 

 more tapiroid Lophiodon, with the large peccari-like pachy- 

 derm called Choeropotamus, and with about a score of 

 other genera and species. 



Long before any discovery had been made of remains 

 of terrestrial Mammals in the contemporary London and 

 plastic clays, the existence of neighbouring dry land had 

 been inferred from the occurrence, in those deposits, of 

 bones of crocodiles and turtles, and from the immense 

 number of fossil seeds and fruits, resembling those of tro- 

 pical trees, as pandani, cocoa-nuts, &c. 



The remains of a few of the Mammals of the ancient 

 palm-groves that bordered the mighty eocene river or estu- 

 ary, have since been recovered from its sediments. One 

 of these quadrupeds is a Lophiodon, another a nearly allied 

 pachyderm (Coryphodori) larger than any existing tapir ; 

 a third (Hyracoiherium) has the closest affinity to the 

 Chffiropotamus, but was not much larger than a hare. 

 In a sandy deposit, probably near the margin of the 

 estuary, and where Kingston in Sussex now stands, the re- 

 mains of a smaller species of Hyracothere, about the size of 

 a rabbit, have been found : and both here and in the eocene 

 clay at Sheppey, and at Bracklesham, vertebrae of large ser- 

 pents like the Boa Constrictor have been discovered. The 

 combination of organic remains in these vast accumulations 

 of the detritus of the eocene continent is, in fact, quite ana- 

 logous to what may be expected to be found in the out- 

 pourings of the Ganges or the Amazon, when those sedi- 



