GEOLOGICAL AGE OF MAST. ARVERNENSIS. 59 



Auvergne. Professor Owen admits that the carnassial teeth 

 specimens, from Newbourn and Woodridge, of his Felis par- 

 do'ides, do not differ in size from the Pliocene Felis pardinensis 

 of Croizet and Jobert, fonnd in Auvergne, and it remains to 

 be shown that the former is specifically different from the 

 latter form. The remarkable sectorial tooth from the Red 

 Crag, which, according to Professor Owen, closely resembles 

 one of the ancient Carnivora called Hycenodon and Pterodon, 

 and which he suspects to be an indication of an extinct oscu- 

 lant genus, linking on the true Felines to the Hysena or 

 Musteline family, has not been generically determined ; 

 and it may have been washed in from strata of the Eocene 

 age. 1 



If, on the other hand, a palseontologist, having satisfied 

 himself that the Eed Crag Mastodon is an undoubted Pliocene 

 form, and finding the same species in the Pluvio-marine 

 Crag, were to infer that they were both of the same geologi- 

 cal age, and if he were then to take a group of some of the 

 well-established species as a starting point, he would expe- 

 rience little difficulty in reconciling many of the more doubtful 

 Mammalian species with a consistent Pliocene association. 

 The species would run in the following order : — The Probos- 

 cidea, M. (Tetralophodori) Arvernensis, E. (Loxodon) meridion- 

 alis, and E. (Euelephas) antiquus ; the Pachydermata, Rhino- 

 ceros leptorhinus or Rhinoc. ?, Tapirus Arvernensis, and 



Equus plicidens ; the Carnivora, Felis pardinensis, JJrsus 

 Arvernensis, and probably a Pliocene species of Canis. With 

 such an harmonious agreement in the great leading forms, he 

 would naturally look to Pliocene forms for comparison when 

 he met with scanty and indecisive remains of such a widely 

 distributed and extensive genus as Gervus, unless the charac- 

 ters were so pronounced as to be decisive of species of an 

 earlier age. 



This is the manner in which I have been led to regard the 

 fossil Mammalia of the Red and Fluvio-marine Crag ; and it 

 has appeared to me that (where remains obviously of an 

 anterior epoch have not been adventitiously intermixed) they 

 agree generally, so far as the species have been well deter- 

 mined, with the great Pliocene fauna of Italy, as exhibited 

 along the valleys of the Po and of the Arno. But it must at 

 the same time be freely admitted, that the materials upon 

 which the determination of many of the species of the Red 

 Crag Mammalia at present rests are so scanty and indecisive, 



1 Quarterly Journal of the Geol. Soc. vol. xii. r, 237, fig. 20. 



