QUATERNARY FAUNA OP GIBRALTAR. 131 



of the Thames. But the forms are for the most part of southern or African affinities. 

 Of the leading forms which characterize the northern division of the mammalian fauna 

 of the Quaternary period, which ranged over Northern and Central Europe and the 

 British Isles, and extended even to the shores of the Mediterranean in the south of 

 France, not a vestige has been discovered in Gibraltar : Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Ursus 

 spelceus, and the Reindeer are alike wanting. 



3. The northern division of this Quaternary fauna as a whole appears to have been 

 arrested by the Pyrenees. That the Reindeer existed in vast herds at the foot of the 

 French slopes of the chain, and that it was accompanied by Ursus spelceus, Bhinoceros 

 tichorhinus, Ovibos moschatus and the Mammoth, is well known. M. Lartet endea- 

 voured to trace their Transpyrenean extension upon data furnished by Don Casiano de 

 Prado, but was unsuccessful ; and up to the present time not a single example of the 

 Reindeer has yet been discovered in the Spanish peninsula, or, according to the same 

 eminent authority, of Elephas primigenius^. It is interesting, however, to observe that 

 the frequent companion of these animals in Northern Europe, the Cave-Hyena, has 

 been found near Segovia, and, as we have seen, formerly existed on the Rock of 

 Gibraltar. 



4. It is of equal interest, on the other hand, to ascertain what was the northern limit 

 of the other different forms ranged under the southern or African group, for which 

 inquiry, however, satisfactory data are stiU wanting. M. Lartet and Don Casiano de 

 Prado determined molars of the existing African Elephant at San Isidro, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Madrid. And it was conjectured that the African Rhinoceros [R. hicornis) 

 had reached the neighbourhood of Montpellier, from remains discovered in the cave of 

 Lunel-Viel ; but Dr. Falconer ascertained that the specimen upon which this conjecture 

 was founded is a jaw containing the milk-dentition of a young R. hemitoechus, agreeing 

 in the closest manner with a corresponding fragment from one of the Gower caves. 



The large Felidse have a vast range of distribution, the Lion extending from India to 

 Babylon, and within the historic period to Thrace on the one side, and on the other 

 from the southernmost point of Africa to Mauritania, and, if it be the case (as there is 

 every reason to believe) that the Cave-Lion is specifically identical, having extended in 

 the Pleistocene period to the north of Britain. The Leopard, if we regard the African 

 and Asiatic varieties as of one species, has also a wide range of distribution. As we 

 have seen, it certainly occurs in the Gibraltar cave-fauna; and it appears to have 

 ranged into Italy, France, Britain, and Central Europe, under the name of Felis antiqua, 

 as a Quaternary form. Hyaena crocuta, under the name of H. spelwa, is still more 

 generally spread ; whilst, under the appellation of H. intermedia, we find the southern 

 and eastern form of H. striata in the cavern of Lunel-Viel &c. 



' Eemaina of the Mammoth, as I have been informed by Professor Leith Adams, have more lately been met 

 with in the north of the peninsula. 



