52 Dr. A. Nehring—Fauna of the Loess in Central Europe. 
Mr. Howorth has answered to the detailed letter of Baron Richt- 
hofen in the number of August (pp. 848-356). He has in this answer 
attacked firstly and principally the above-cited statement of Baron 
Richthofen concerning the mammals of the Loess; he says (p. 345): 
“The first point to which I would call attention is that we are com- 
pletely at issue about the kind of surroundings which the debris of 
the Loess fauna show must have existed when that fauna was living. 
Baron Richthofen says, ‘The genera and mostly the species of mam- 
mals found in the Loess, or their next relatives, are known to 
abound at present in Steppes and on grassy plains.’ Is this so? 
The Mammoth, it has been well said, would starve in a few days on 
the richest Craven pasture. The Elephant and his nearest relatives 
cannot browse upon the herbage of Steppes or grassy plains. Its 
natural habitat is the forest, its natural food—the succulent branches 
of trees, and we actually know, as is most familiar to Baron Richt- 
hofen, that both the Mammoth and the Rhinoceros tichorhinus did 
live upon the softer portions of trees, for remains of their food have 
been preserved and examined. These are the characteristic quadru- 
peds of the Loess, and with them occur other forest animals.” 
Afterwards Mr. Howorth recurs once more to the Fauna of the 
Loess period, and drawing my name into the discussion, he says 
(op. cit. p. 850): “In Europe therefore, so far as we know, there 
is no area, whence the dust could come, and there is abundant 
evidence that the dry Steppe-climate of Baron Richthofen is virtually 
out of the regions of possibility. But he makes still greater demands 
on our faith when, not content with speaking of a Steppe climate, he 
speaks of such Steppes as if they were the equivalents of or had any 
analogy with the Siberian tundras, and treats the two as if they 
were the same thing. The tundras are as different to Steppes as 
anything can be; they are covered with thick moss, and can neither 
be denuded by winds nor have their substance increased by them. 
They are essentially exceedingly humid and quite different to the 
dry areas he otherwise speaks of. Surely we require some explana- 
tions of these extraordinary statements. Here let me say paren- 
thetically, that Baron Richthofen cannot be serious in urging that 
the proof of the identity of the Pleistocene fauna of Europe, includ- 
ing that of the Loess, with that buried under the tundras, was re- 
served for Dr. Nehring. Has he forgotten the name of Cuvier, to 
select only a very big name from a large crowd, who proved this 
elementary position long before Dr. Nehring was born ? ” 
The ironical manner in which Mr. Howorth mentions my re- 
searches, and his absolute ignorance of my publications, compels me 
to make the following communication, from which I would have 
otherwise abstained, if Mr. Howorth had taken the trouble to read 
any of the numerous papers concerning the Loess and the Fauna of 
of the Post-Glacial Steppes of Central Europe, which I have pub- 
lished since 1875 in several well-known journals.) 
1 Cf. Verhandlungen d. k. k. geol. Reichsanst. in Wien, 1878, No. 12. 1880, 
No. 12. Zeitschr. t. d. gesammten Naturwiss. 1875, Bd. 45, pp. 1-28 mit Taf. 
1876, Bd. 47, pp. 1-68, mit Taf. Bd. 48, pp. 177-236, mit Tafel. ‘‘ Gaea,’’ 1877, 
