180 FAUNA ANTIQUA SIVALENSIS. 



The Steppe of Hioondes lias been shown by Captain Webb 

 to be upwards of 15,000 feet above tbe sea, close on the 

 limit of perpetual snow ; it is bounded on one side by the 

 Himalayah Mountains, and on the other by the Kailasa range, 

 of enormous height, some portions being, on a rough ap- 

 proximation, 30,000 feet above the sea. The tract, in the 

 emphatic language of Batten, is shrubless and treeless — a vast 

 waste supportmg a few furze bushes and a sprinkling of the 

 most Alpme vegetation; and the climate is one of Polar 

 severity. 



It is very certain that no Rhinoceros of the present time 

 could exist for a day in such a habitat ; and if we suppose 

 the Tibetian species to have been clothed with a dense fur, 

 like the Siberian species the carcase of which was brought to 

 Pallas from latitude 64° on the banks of the Lena, still the 

 tract could never have subsisted it, for although it has been 

 urged by Dr. Fleming that the simple analogy of anatomical 

 structure in the living species is not sufficient to guide us to 

 a conclusion, or even a conjecture, as to the habits, geo- 

 graphical distribution, or food, of extinct species, so clearly 

 shown in the lichen food of the Reindeer, still there is a 

 limit to the force of this objection, and it only applies to 

 certain cases. In the case of the Rhinoceros the incisive 

 teeth are deficient in number, and the greater portion of them 

 rudimentary in form and even deciduous. It may, therefore, 

 be very safely predicated of all the species, fossil or existing, 

 that they could never subsist by browsing on a herbaceous 

 vegetation ; they want the nippers which enable the horse 

 and ruminants to subsist on low grass ; and their food must 

 either be derived from large reeds, shrubs, or trees, none of 

 which are now found in Tibet. 



The Siberian Rhinoceros remains are found on the shores 

 of the frozen ocean, under conditions of climate more severe 

 than those of Tibet ; and it has been shown by Lyell how 

 these remains might have found their way by changes in the 

 physical geography of Siberia, by transportation in ice blocks, 

 and by periodical migrations. But these conditions will not 

 apply to the Hioondes ; the Rhmoceros could neither have 

 migrated to its mountain-locked plain, from the side of 

 Hindostan by the passes, where men and goats can hardly 

 find their way save by the artificial aid of scaffoldings, nor is 

 it apparent how the bones could have been transported to 

 their present resting place from a higher tract. 



The only explanation of the case that suggests itself, which 

 appears admissible, is a depression of the j^lain of the Hioon- 

 des to a much lower level than it has at present; and to 

 clothe it with a vegetation resembling that of England now, 



