314 THE AGE OF MAMMALS 



that, thanks to the earlier writings of Clervais, Falconer, Forsyth Major, 

 Newton, and Boyd Dawkins, and the more recent researches of Deperet, 

 we get a magnificent picture of the Middle Pliocene life of Europe marking 

 the close of the extension of the older Pliocene fauna. The chief localities 

 are the following: 



Roussillon (Fig. 151, 6), a basin surrounding the village of Perpignan, north 



of the eastern Pyrenees, fluvio-lacustrine deposits. 

 Meximieux (9), lacustrine tuffs or volcanic ash deposits, famous for flora, 



in the Saone Valley. 

 Red Crag of Suffolk (4), fluvio-marine deposits partly of Upper Pliocene age. 



The flora of Meximieux, already alluded to on p. 307, shows an abun- 

 dance of plants with affinities to the genera of the Canary Islands, mingled 

 with those of the Caucasus and of China.^ Here flourish the bamboo, 

 the sassafras, the magnolia, and the laurel. This indicates a mean annual 

 temperature of 17°- 18° C. (62°- 64° Fahr.). 



The mammalian life of southern France just north of the eastern Pyr- 

 enees is preserved in the basin of Roussillon, the site of a Pliocene gulf; in 

 the center of this basin is situated the village of Perpignan. The mammals 

 described below (p. 315) include also those of Montpellier (Herault), a 

 deposit of marine sands containing a very similar fauna. 



We owe to Deperet^ (1890) a fine analysis of this 'ancient Pliocene 

 fauna.' It is an assemblage which gives us a fair idea of the animal life of 

 the sub-tropical swampy plains of this region toward the middle of the 

 Pliocene period. There are four grand components of the fauna. 



(1) The first is that of the surviving Miocene forms {Machcerodus, 



Mastodon, Hipparion, Hycenardos) which have left no modern 

 successors. 

 The other three components are the essentially modern genera or 

 ancestors of genera which still survive and are now distributed 

 in three great zoological regions, as follows: 



(2) Europe and central Asia, the Palsearctic Region. 



(3) The Indo-Malayan province of the Oriental Region. 



(4) The Ethiopian or African Region. 



The saber-tooth tiger (Machcerodus) of the period is of a smaller type 

 than the great Upper Miocene forms. Hycenardos, the dog-bear {H. in- 

 signis), is intermediate in structure between the Miocene dinocyons and 

 the true bears, although it is not, as formerly supposed, ancestral to the 

 bears. 



The mastodons ^ have now attained a gigantic size and are armed with 



* De Saporta quoted by De Lapparent, Traite de Geologie, 1906, p. 1645. 

 '^ Deperet, Animaux Pliocenes du Roussillon, 1890. 



' Capellini, G., Mastodonti del Museo Geologico di Bologna. Mem. R. Acad. Sci. Inst. 

 Bologna, Ser. 6, Vol. IV, Bologna, 1907. 



