176 



NA rURE 



[June 21, 1906 



owe to him, and in some degree to others who have 

 been worlcing on the extinct Egyptian faunas. 



Before proceeding further we may talie the oppor- 

 tunity of expressing, on behalf of all palaeontologists, 

 ■our appreciation of the generosity of the Egyptian 

 Government in putting at the disposal of the trustees 

 of the British Museum, for the purpose of this cata- 

 logue, the whole of the valuable collection of verte- 

 brate remains from the Fayum preserved in the 

 museum at Cairo. We may likewise respectfully 

 tender to the trustees of the national collection our 

 sense of the benefit they have conferred on science 

 bv sanctioning the publication of the work before us. 

 Nor must we omit to mention the name of Mr. \V. E. 

 de Winton, who has generously defrayed the expenses 

 connected with some of the visits of Dr. Andrews to 

 Egvpt to explore and collect the pateontological 

 treasures of this wonderful district. 



It will not be necessary on this occasion to refer in 

 detail to the history of the discovery of fossil verte- 

 brates in Egypt. Suffice it to say that the first dis- 

 covery was not made by the author of the volume 

 before us, although it appears that he was present 

 when the remains of ancestral proboscideans and 

 other primitive mammals were first brought to light. 



With a few unimportant exceptions, the whole of 

 the remains described in the volume were derived 

 from strata of Middle and Upper Eocene age lying 

 on the northern side of Lake Moeris. In the author's 

 opinion it appears that the Fayum strata, as we 

 advance from earlier to later times, were, speaking 

 generallv, deposited nearer and nearer to some land- 

 mass. 



" In the early Eocene the presence of thick marine beds 

 far to the southward shows that the shores of the Ethiopian 

 conthient were still remote from the area now under dis- 

 cussion ; and this state of things seems to have continued 

 till the Middle Eocene, as shown by the thick nummulitic 

 heds of the Wadi Rayan series, and the e.xclusively marine 

 character of the fossils both of those beds, the Ravine beds, 

 and the Birket-el-Qurun series above. In the Qasr-el- 

 Sagha- series, on the other hand, there is much evidence 

 that the shore was not far off, the presence of thick beds 

 of clay, often current-bedded and containing numerous 

 impressions of leaves, as well as the occurrence of land- 

 mammals, pointing to this conclusion. In fact, the de- 

 posits at this horizon may be regarded as partly marine 

 and partly littoral, there having been many small oscil- 

 lations of level. In the Fluvio-marine (Upper Eocene) 

 beds above, the near presence of a large land-mass is still 

 more obvious, these deposits being, in fact, almost entirely 

 fluviatile, and probably representing the remains of the 

 delta of a great river which, for various reasons, Mr. 

 Beadnell considers flowed from the south-west. At or near 

 the end of the Eocene period this state of things was inter- 

 rupted by an outburst of volcanic activity, which gave rise 

 to the interbedded basalt-sheets of the Jebel-el-Qatrani ; 

 but after this the fluviatile conditions were again resumed, 

 and appear to have continued with some interruptions 

 throughout the Oligocene, Miocene, and, in part at least, 

 the Pliocene periods. Throughout this vast epoch there 

 seems to have been a general tendency towards a gradual 

 advance of the coast-line northwards, and such interrup- 

 tions and oscillations ' as did occur are marked by the 

 presence of interbedded marine, littoral, and perhaps, in a 

 few cases, lacustrine deposits." 



Obviously, such a state of things affords just the 

 conditions necessary for the preservation of the 

 remains of a series of faunas, and as a matter of 

 fact such remains have beeji found in two horizons 

 in addition to those forming the subject of the 

 catalogue. 



The mammals may be divided into three groups. 

 First, terrestrial forms, such as ancestral proboscideans, 

 hyracoids, and the remarkable Arsinoitherium which 

 ;ippear to have been endemic to the Ethiopian region, 



NO. 191 2, VOL. 74] 



and occur in both the upper and lower beds, and are 

 unknown elsewhere. Secondly, terrestrial types like 

 Ancodon and Hysnodon, represented in other parts 

 of the world, and found only in the upper beds. 

 Thirdly, primitive genera of sirenians and cetaceans, 

 confined to the lower beds, some of which are widely 

 spread, while others are unknown elsewhere and 

 may be endemic. .\\\ the genera in the first group 

 are ungulates, and, with one exception, belong to 

 that generalised assemblage frequently known as 

 subungulates. 



The most striking of all these wonderful un- 

 gulates is undoubtedly the huge and powerfuUv 

 horned Arsinoitherium (Fig. 2); but interesting as is 

 this creature morphologically it adds but little to our 

 knowledge of mammalian evolution, although there 

 is a possibility that it may prove to be an offshoot 

 from the hyrax-stock. In any case the occurrence of 

 this and several other speciaHsed types at such an 

 early stage is one of the most remarkable features 

 of the Fayum fauna. 



Although Arsinoitherium is certainly the most ex 



Fig. I. — Lateral and sup^rioi 

 a primitive Egyptian Ceta 



iews of the skull of Prozeuglodon atro.v, 

 ,n. The letters refer to the names of the 

 ■' The Calaloeue of Fayum Vertebrates." 



traordinary of the Eocene Egyptian ungulates, it 

 undoubtedly yields place in point of interest to the 

 ancestral proboscideans. The probability that Africa 

 would prove to be the original home of the Pro- 

 boscidea was suggested, among others, by Prof. 

 H. F. Osborn, who also conjectured that the hyraxes 

 and certain other groups might likewise be of 

 Ethiopian origin. In regard to the two groups men- 

 tioned, the truth of this bold prophecy has been fully 

 demonstrated by the discoveries and investigations 

 of Dr. Andrews. Since the evolutionary history of 

 the Proboscidea, as revealed by these discoveries, has 

 alreadv been made familiar to the public in several 

 journals — N.\ture among' the number — it will be un- 

 necessary to go over the ground again, and it will 

 suffice to mention that in Moeritherium, the earliest 

 known representative of the group, we have an animal 

 but little removed from the generalised common type 

 of primitive ungulates. It may be added that while 

 the Ethiopian origin of the Proboscidea has now 

 been proved, it is nearly as certain that the passage 

 from the mastodons to fhe elephants took place in 



