2/4 HISTORY OF THE EUROPEAN FAUNA. 



a giraffe and antelopes closely allied to African 

 species, and other most interesting mammals. 



In still earlier European deposits the Miocene 

 we find the ancestors of modem Elephants, which 

 are probably of Asiatic origin. The remains of 

 several kinds of monkeys occur, whose nearest 

 relations are now confined to Southern Asia. 

 Altogether the fauna bears a strong Asiatic facies. 

 Many of our European terrestrial invertebrates 

 probably arrived about this time from Asia. The 

 struggle for existence being keener and the facility 

 for migration much greater in the higher vertebrates, 

 they or at any rate the mammalian faunas were 

 subjected to more rapid changes than the inverte- 

 brates. I have repeatedly expressed my belief that 

 a great number of our familiar insects and mollusca 

 inhabited Europe long before our present mammals 

 came into existence. 1 



Let us now follow one of the miocene Oriental 

 migrants starting from Central Asia on its way to 

 Europe. Very soon after leaving its home, it must 

 have encountered a sea which extended at that time 

 from the Eastern Mediterranean to the borders of 

 Afghanistan. In following a westward course, the 

 emigrant was compelled to keep along the northern 

 shore of it. We do not know the state of the 

 physical geography of the region between the Black 



1 In some cases the accuracy of this view is proved by fossil evidence, 

 Helix rottindata, a common and widely spread British species, having 

 been found in miocene strata near Bordeaux. 



