FAUNA OF ARGENTINA. 399 



the animal kingdom were at that time much the same as at present. There were 

 no huge carnivorous beasts to break and scatter the bones, but only, as at present, 

 vultures and other carrion birds to devour the flesh. According to the Indians 

 the glyptodon survived till quite recently, and appears to have been certainly con- 

 temporary vpith man. Hoth found a human skeleton in the hollow ground 

 excavated beneath the natural roof formed by the huge carapace of one of these 

 animals. 



A striking feature of this Plateau and Patagonian tertiary fauna is the astonish- 

 ing abundance and variety of species concentrated in a narrow space. The Bahia 

 Blanca beds, little more than about 250 square yards in extent, contained skulls 

 of the megatherium ; a megalonyx ; a nearly perfect scelidotherium, a quadruped 

 of the same family, but showing relations, on the one hand, with the ant-eater, 

 on the other with the armadillo ; three gigantic species belonging to the group of 

 edentates ; a horse ; a tooth of the macrauchenia, ancestor of the camel and of the 

 llama ; lastly a toxodon, a strange creature approaching the elephant in size, the 

 rat in its dentition, and the manatee in its aquatic habits, with a general resem- 

 blance in form to the capivara of the Parana. 



On the banks of the Santa Cruz and other South Patagonian rivers explorers 

 have found numerous remains of hitherto unknown mammals, all of which have 

 not yet been completely classified. Amongst the most interesting finds in this 

 region is a gigantic bird larger even than the New Zealand dinornis. Altogether 

 the extinct Patagonian fauna rivals in number and importance that of the Bad 

 Lands of the North American Far West. 



From the great variety and huge size of these remains it has been inferred 

 that the terminal peninsula of America is a mere remnant of a vast Continent, 

 M'hich comprised the islands now scattered over the South Atlantic Ocean, The 

 amazing accumulation of fossils occurring under the volcanic tuffas support the 

 hypothesis that at that time the animal kingdom was here represented by myriads 

 of individuals. At present, were all the animals of the plains involved in some 

 sudden catastrophe, their skeletons would be found very thinly scattered, except 

 in the case of gregarious animals herding together. 



But however this be, Buffon's remark that the size of the animals corresponds 

 to some extent to that of the continents inhabited by them, does not appear to be 

 justified by the character of the old tertiary fauna of Patagonia. However large 

 this peninsula may have been at that time, it can scarcely have been another 

 Africa. But in the contemporary geological epoch most of the genera are repre- 

 sented by species of larger proportions in the New than in the Old World. 



By a remarkable phenomenon of correspondence, the present fauna of the 

 temperate regions in South America resembles that of the northern continent. 

 In this respect Argentina and Patagonia correspond to the States bordering on 

 the great Canadian lakes ; if not in their specialised forms, at le:ist in their 

 genera. In certain districts of both regions all the types might almost be regarded 

 as identical. But in respect of the invertebrates belonging to the marine fauna, 

 it has been observed that the corresponding animal forms are met on the shores 



