INTEODUCTION. 25 



been found to hold generally good in two other remarkable 



instances, Australia and America. The former country is at 



present the head-quarters of the marsupial tribes, and the 



same is the leading character of what is known of its fossil 



fauna. In like manner America, which is now the great 



home of the Edentata, has yielded almost all the gigantic 



forms of that order known to us — such as the Megatherium 



and others. But in marking the general analogy which runs 



between the ancient and the existing fauna of India, we are 



struck, considermg the number of forms which have become 



extinct, with the extreme reduction of species. ISTot only 



have the Proboscidean pachyderms declined from five to one, 



and the Equidae from three to one, but numerous genera have 



died off entirely : we have nothmg remaining of the Hexa- 



protodon Hippopotami, the Merycopotamus, Anoplotheriuui, 



Hippohyus, Enhydriodon, Hyajnarctos, Sivatherium, Camel, 



Giraffe, and other forms which I could enumerate. The 



conclusion is irresistible, that the eera of the great force and 



development of the vertebrated animals in India has gone 



by, and that what we now see as our contemporaries are, as 



it were, but a ragged remnant representation of the rich 



garment of life with which the continent was formerly clothed. 



The next remarkable character is the singular mixture of 



representatives of old and new, past and existing forms, 



which are grouped together in the Sewalik fauna. I allude 



especially to the Anoplotherium Sivalense, the bones of which 



were discovered crossed in the same clay matrix with those of 



camel, antelope, and giraffe. The species comes nearest to 



that which has been described by Kaup as the GhalicotheriuTn 



Goldfussi, from the miocene beds of Eppelsheim, the generic 



distinction having been founded apparently from mistaking 



the false molars for incisors.' But the great development of 



the genus is in the Eocene tertiaries of Europe ; whUe in the 



Sewalik hills the species is associated with several quadru- 



mana closely allied to existing forms, and even with fossil 



reptilia, now known to us as existing species. In addition 



to the Anoplotherium, excellent observers like Messrs. Baker 



and Durand, and Dr. McClelland, have mentioned the Palseo- 



therium as a Sewalik fossil ; but no remains referable to that 



genus have yet come under our observation. Some of the 



other Sewalik animals, such as the Machairodus or Ursus cul- 



tridens, and the Merycopotamus, which is closely allied to the 



Anthracotherium, indicate a similar tendency towards the 



faunas of the older tertiaries of Europe, in a portion of the 



Sewalik fauna. At the present day we only know the giraffe 



' Dr. F. afterwards regarded Anojplotherium Sivalense as belonging to Kaup's 

 genus, Chalicotherium. — [Ed.] 



