XXX11 INTRODUCTION. 



between the course of the extirpation of the Pliocene 

 Mammals, and that which history shows to have reduced 

 the numbers of the wild animals of continents and islands 

 in connection with the progress of man^s dominion. The 

 largest, the most ferocious, and the least useful of the 

 pliocene species have perished ; but the Horse, the Ass, 

 the Hog, probably the smaller Wild Ox, the Goat, the 

 Red-deer, and Roe, and many of the diminutive quadru- 

 peds, remain. The present negative evidence supports the 

 belief that the Human species had not been called into 

 existence when the Mammoth, the tichorhine and lepto- 

 rhine Rhinoceroses, and the great northern Hippopotamus 

 became extinct. Cuvier drew the same conclusion as 

 to the Quadrumanous Order from the same grounds; 

 but the recent discovery of a true fossil portion of a Mon- 

 key's skeleton, (figs. 1, 2, and 3, p. xlvi,) in the same la- 

 custrine deposits which abound in the remains of extinct 

 Pachyderms, with similar discoveries noticed in the first 

 section of the present Work, should teach caution in the 

 application of conclusions from merely negative facts. It 

 is probable that the Horse and Ass are descendants of a 

 species of pliocene antiquity in Europe. There is no ana- 

 tomical character by which the present Wild Boar can 

 be distinguished specifically from that which was con- 

 temporary with the Mammoth. All the species of Euro- 

 pean pliocene Bomdee came down to the Historical period, 

 and the Aurochs and Musk-Ox still exist ; but the one 

 owes its preservation to special Imperial protection, and 

 the other has been driven, like the Rein-deer, to high 

 northern latitudes."* There is evidence that the great Bos 



* The observations of Mr. Murchison, in his great work on the Geology of 

 Russia, 4to., 1845, pp. 471, 492 to 507, bearing upon the question of the specific 

 identity of the existing with the fossil Aurochs, are highly interesting, and sup- 

 port the conclusions to which I had arrived from anatomical comparisons. 



