XXIV INTRODUCTION. 



Three kinds of wild Oxen, two of which were of colossal 

 size and strength, and one of these maned and villous like 

 the Bonassus, found subsistence in the plains. Deer, as gi- 

 gantic in proportion to existing species, were the contem- 

 poraries of the old Uri and Bisontes, and may have disputed 

 with them the pasturage of that ancient land : one of 

 these extinct Deer is well known under the name of " Irish 

 Elk, 11 by the enormous expanse of its broad-palmed ant- 

 lers ; * another had horns more like those of the Wapiti, 

 but surpassed that great Canadian Deer in bulk ; a third 

 extinct species more resembled the Indian Hippelaphus ; 

 and with these were associated the Bed -deer, the Rein- deer, 

 the Roe-buck, and the Goat. A Wild Horse, a WiJd Ass 

 or Quagga, and the Wild Boar, entered also into the 

 series of British Pliocene hoofed Mammalia. 



The Carnivora, organized to enjoy a life of rapine at 

 the expense of the vegetable-feeders, to restrain their 

 undue increase, and abridge the pangs of the maimed and 

 sickly, were duly adjusted in numbers, size, and ferocity 

 to the fell task assigned to them in the organic economy 

 of the pre-Adamitic world. Besides a British Tiger of 

 larger size, and with proportionally larger paws than that 

 of Bengal, there existed a stranger Feline animal (Ma- 

 chairodus) of equal size, which, from the great length and 

 sharpness of its sabre-shaped canines, was probably the 

 most ferocious and destructive of its peculiarly carnivorous 

 family. Of the smaller Felines we recognise the remains 

 of a Leopard or large Lynx, and of a Wild Cat. 



Troops of Hysenas, larger than the fierce Crocuta of 

 South Africa, which they most resembled, crunched the 

 bones of the carcases relinquished by the nobler beasts of 

 prey ; and, doubtless, often themselves waged the war of 



* See cut in Title-page, and fig. 182. 



