CHAPTER VII. 



EXTINCT MAMMALIA OF THE NEW WOKLD. 



The discoveries of very rich depo?its of mamraalian remains in 

 various parts of tiie United States have tlirown great light on 

 tlie relations of the faunas of very distant regions. North 

 America now makes a near approach to Europe in the number 

 and variety of its extinct mammalia, and in no part of the world 

 have such perfect specimens been discovered. In what are called 

 the " Mauvaises terres " of Nebraska (the dried-up mud of an 

 ancient lake), thousands of entire crania and some almost entire 

 skeletons of ancient animals have been found, their teeth abso- 

 lutely perfect, and altogether more resembling the preparations 

 of the anatomist, than time-worn fossils such as we are accus- 

 tomed to see in the museums of Europe. Other deposits have 

 been discovered in Oregon, California, Virginia, South Carolina, 

 Texas, and Utah, ranging over all the Tertiary epochs, from 

 Post-Pliocene to Eocene, and furnishing a remarkable picture 

 of the numerous strange mammalia which inhabited the ancient 

 North American continent. 



North America — Post-Pliocene Period. 



Insedivoi^a. — The only indications of this order yet discovered, 

 consists of a single tooth of some insectivorous animal found 

 in Illinois, but which cannot be referred to any known group. 



Carnivora. — These are fairly represented. Two species of 

 Felis as large as a lion ; the equally large extinct Trucifdis, 

 found only in Texas ; four species of Canis, some of them larger 



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