40 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



With a mild and genial winter prevailing as far north as 

 Scotland and Norway, it is evident that the present distribution 

 of flora and fauna would be very considerably affected. We 

 might well have characteristic temperate forms, such as the stag, 

 oxen, bisons, horses, and others living all the year round in 

 Lapland, and even in the country of the Samoyedes, while the 

 northern species were restricted to the lofty mountain-tracts, or 

 banished out of Europe altogether. The climate of England and 

 France under such conditions as we have supposed would sup- 

 port a vigorous vegetation, and might readily be occupied by 

 many animals that are now restricted to more southern latitudes. 

 There is really nothing in the habits or mode of life of the 

 hippopotamus, for example, that would lead us to suppose that 

 for it a tropical climate is indispensable. A country that fur- 

 nished plenty of succulent plants, and whose winters were suffi- 

 ciently genial to keep the streams and lakes and rivers free from 

 ice, might very well suit the hippopotamus and not a few of his 

 present associates. Indeed, one might almost infer from the 

 great size attained by many of the southern forms during the 

 Old Stone Age that these animals throve better under the tem- 

 perate climate of Europe than they do now in the warm regions 

 of Africa. The large size of many of the temperate species — 

 the cervine, bovine, and other animals that were contemporane- 

 ous in our continent with the great pachyderms, and whose 

 dwarfed descendants still live in these latitudes — is also remark- 

 able. Many causes, certainly, may have combined to bring 

 about this change in the size of these animals. They have all 

 experienced more or less of a hard struggle for existence, and 

 their feeding-grounds have been greatly limited since the time 

 when they were hunted by Palaeolithic man. It is doubtful, 

 however, whether the diminished size of the pachyderms and 

 their associates can be entirely accounted for in this way, and 

 whether it may not be due in part to the less favourable climatic 

 conditions under which they now live. 



It was certainly not under tropical conditions that the old 

 pachyderms occupied our continent. The climate of all North- 



