24 FAUNA ANTIQUA SIVALENSIS. 



one merely of curious interest, resting on the numerous 

 animals and remarkable forms with which we are occupied. 

 It involves important considerations regarding the former 

 condition of India, in respect of climate, geographical cha- 

 racter, and the alterations of surface which it has undergone 

 in the upheavement of the Himalayahs and of the Sewalik 

 hills. To these points I shall now direct your attention ; 

 but in order to bring the subject clearly before you, it will be 

 necessary in the first instance to review some of the leading 

 features of the Sewalik fauna. 



The first character which strikes us is the wonderful rich- 

 ness and exuberant variety of forms. In the Pachyder- 

 mata, which are now restricted in continental India to four 

 genera and four or five species, there were then twice the 

 number of genera, and ahout five times the number of species. 

 Of the Proboscidean Pachydermata alone, including the ele- 

 phant and mastodon, there were as many Sewalik species as 

 are now comprised in the whole order in India, and the same 

 holds good as to the Euminantia. Besides a large number of 

 species representing those which now inhabit the continent, 

 such as the ox, buffalo, bison, deer, antelope, musk-deer, and 

 others, there were more than one species of giraffe and of 

 camel, together with the Sivatherium — in fact, representatives 

 of every tj^pe known in the order, fossil or recent, either in 

 India or elsewhere. And so on through the Carnivora, which 

 were singularly rich and varied in forms, and through the 

 Quadrumana, Rodentia, Insectivora — Birds, Reptiles, Pish, 

 Crustacea, and Mollusca. Nor is there the slightest proof 

 that this mass of sjjecies were not alive at the same time, 

 but interpolated Successively at difi'erent periods. The re- 

 mains of all were found reposing together, in the same beds 

 of the same strata. 



The next striking feature is the close analogy between the 

 existing fauna of India, so far as it goes, and the extinct 

 fauna. What we have at present is but a reduced, or as it 

 were remnant, representation of what existed before. India 

 has no marsupial animals now ; and up to the present time no 

 remains referable to that class have been detected among: the 

 Sewalik fossils. The same holds in regard to the Edentata. 

 India contains at present but a single species, the Manis 

 crassicaudata ; and we have not foiTud one in the fossil state, 

 although at least one may yet be expected. In like manner, 

 the cetacea which are represented by the solitary Platanista 

 Gangetica, or dolphin of the Ganges, have as yet yielded no 

 fossil representative, although, as in the case of the manis, 

 one or more may be expected. It is interesting to keep this 

 fact of parallel representation in mind, as the same law has 



