THE ORIENTAL MIGRATION. 253 



very closely related, and the supposition that they 

 all have had their original home in the Oriental Region 

 offers, I think, no serious obstacle. The view of the 

 European origin of the mammoth especially is open 

 to very serious objections. It does not occur in any 

 European pliocene deposits, and could not therefore 

 have originated in our Continent until pleistocene 

 times. That it should then have commenced its 

 travels through Europe and Siberia to the New 

 Siberian Islands and North America seems almost 

 an impossibility. But if we suppose the mammoth 

 to have had its home in India in pliocene times, it 

 could then easily have migrated to all the parts of 

 the world where its remains have been discovered. 



Of the Asiatic mammals still living, some have 

 only just crossed the borders of Europe and then 

 died out again. Similar cases have been referred to 

 in discussing the Siberian migration. Thus remains 

 of the camel have been found in Roumania and in 

 Southern Russia in pleistocene deposits. Others have 

 lingered on to the present day. Crocidura etrusca, 

 for instance, still lives in Southern France, Italy, 

 Sicily, and North-western Africa. All its nearest 

 relations are typically Oriental species. In spite of 

 the fact that a Crocidura is known from French and 

 German miocene deposits, the general range of the 

 genus suggests an Oriental origin. In early Tertiary 

 times a section spread into African territory and 

 another eastward as far as the island of Timor. This 

 may possibly have happened in miocene times, when 



