214 HISTORY OF THE EUROPEAN FAUNA. 



only do we find the Saiga-Antelope, Tiger, Wild 

 Horse, European Bison, Mammoth, and Rhinoceros 

 in the extreme north of the mainland of Siberia; their 

 remains have even been obtained in the New Siberian 

 Islands. As these islands are situated in the same 

 latitude as the northern part of Novaya Zemlya, 

 indeed, not far south of the latitude of Spitsbergen, 

 the fact of such huge mammals having been able 

 to find subsistence there at apparently quite a recent 

 geological period seems an astounding fact. It may 

 be urged that their bones might have been carried so 

 far north by ice, or by some other equally powerful 

 agency. But Tcherski and all other palaeontologists 

 who have examined these northern deposits are 

 unanimous in the belief that these herbivores and 

 carnivores lived and died where their remains are 

 now found. "It is evident," says Tcherski (p. 451), 

 "that these large animals could only have lived in 

 those extremely northern latitudes under correspond- 

 ingly favourable conditions of the vegetation, viz., 

 during the existence of forests, meadows, and 

 steppes." He also is of opinion that the moist climate 

 which evidently prevailed in Europe during Post- 

 tertiary (Pleistocene) times must have modified the 

 Siberian climate in so far as to render it milder. 

 The existence of the Aralo-Caspian basin (Fig. 12, 

 p. 156) must also have tended in the same direction. 

 It appears then that, at the time when plants and 

 animals are believed to have retired southward in 

 Europe before the supposed advancing Scandinavian 



