Miscellaneous. 331 



True cats, like the jaguar and the tiger, roam the forests ; and wea- 

 sels and otters inhabit the banks of the streams. 



The modern time has come, so far as the patterns of the animals 

 are concerned ; but their habitations are still different from those 

 which their representatives preserve at the present day. But nearly 

 aU the post-pUocene quadrupeds belong to different species from 

 those now living. 



The present appearance of the mammalian family in Xorth Ame- 

 rica is due to the following changes : — The Uamas, sloths, tapirs, 

 and peccaries have all been banished to Mexico and South America ; 

 so also most of the large cats. The horses, mastodons, and ele- 

 phants were extinguished. The deer type seems to have expanded, 

 while one ox (the bison) and an antelope remain. The wild dogs, 

 weasels, &c. number about as many species now as in the past, while 

 the variety of bears seems to have increased ; on the other hand 

 only one of the large cats (the puma) remains. That strange crea- 

 ture the opossum still holds his own far away from his Australian 

 kindred. The smaller rodent quadrupeds are almost as much 

 varied as ever. Many of these changes have evidently been 

 wrought by the glacial period. That frozen epoch brought down 

 the arctic life, and either destroyed those forms that could not resist 

 its rigours, or drove them into a more southern climate. The miLsk- 

 ox then roamed through the southern States ; the walrus haunted 

 the coasts of Virginia ; and the reindeer peopled Xew Jersey. With 

 the return of the milder period these again sought the north. 



But a small proportion of the actual number of the species which 

 lived during these successive ages is yet known, and the field offers 

 many returns for exploration. As an illustration of the manner in 

 which opinions respecting the history of life may be corrected by 

 discovery, I cite two examples. The bony gar-fishes have been 

 often pointed to as exhibiting a remarkable break in the times of 

 appearance in geological history. Their latest fossil relatives were 

 known to have existed during the ancient period called the Jurassic ; 

 they did not recur until the present, and now only in the fresh 

 waters of J^'orth America. This break of at least one third of all 

 geological time has been recently much reduced by the discovery of 

 gars in great abundance in the Miocene and Eocene periods on this 

 continent. The second case is that of the serpents. They were 

 only known for a long time in the Eocene of Xcw Jersey, then in 

 the same epoch of Wyoming, and lately in the Miocene of Colorado. 



Until recently no fossil monkeys, bats, or opossums were known 

 to exist in American formations ; and the curious intermediate 

 divisions above described as related to elephant, rhinoceros, tapir, 

 hog, camel, horse, monkey, &c. are all recent American discoveries. 

 —The Penn Monthly, Feb. 1874. 



On Xenelaphus, Furcifer, and Coassus peruvianus of the Peruvian 

 Alps. By Dr. J. E. Gr\t, F.R.S. &c. 



Mr. Whitely has sent to the British Museum the skins and skulls 

 of a male and female Peruvian deer from Ceuchupate, Peru, at an 

 elevation of 11000 feet. 



