110 DISTRIBUTION OF EXTINCT ANIMALS. Tpart ii. 



Historic Period. — In tracing back the history of the organic 

 world we find, even within the limits of the historical period, 

 that some animals have become extinct, while the distribution of 

 others has been materially changed. The Rytina of the North 

 Pacific, the dodo of Mauritius, and the great auk of the North 

 Atlantic coasts, have been exterminated almost in our own 

 times. The kitchen-middens of Denmark contain remains of 

 the capercailzie, the Bos primigenins, and the beaver. The first 

 still abounds farther north, the second is extinct, and the third 

 is becoming so in Europe. The great Irish elk, a huge-antlered 

 deer, probably existed almost down to historic times. 



Pleistocene or Post-Pliocene Period. — We first meet with proofs 

 of important changes in the character of the European fauna, in 

 studying the remains found in the caverns of England and France, 

 which have recently been so well explored. These cave -remains 

 are probably all subsequent to the Glacial epoch, and they all 

 come within the period of man's occupation of the country. Yet 

 we find clear proofs of two distinct kinds of change in the 

 forms of animal life. First we have a change clearly trace- 

 able to a difference of climate. We find such arctic forms as 

 the rein-deer, the musk-sheep, the glutton, and the lemming, 

 with the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros of the Siberian 

 ice-cliffs, inhabiting this country and even the south of France. 

 This is held to be good proof that a sub-arctic climate pre- 

 vailed over all Central Europe ; and this climate, together with 

 the continental condition of Britain, will sufficiently explain 

 such a southward range of what are now arctic forms. 



But together with this change we have another that seems at 

 first sight to be in an exactly opposite direction. We meet 

 with numerous animals which now only inhabit Africa, or South 

 Europe, or the warmer parts of Asia, Such are, large felines — 

 some closely related to the lion (Felis spelcea), others of alto- 

 gether extinct type (Machairodus) and forming the extreme de- 

 velopment of the feline race ; — hysenas ; horses of two or more 

 species ; and a hippopotamus. If we go a little further back, to 

 the remains furnished by the gravels and brick-earths, we still 

 find the same association of forms. The reindeer, the glutton, 



