XVII.] GEOLOGY OF THE THAMES BASIN. 



283 



Thames valley ; and along with the elephants were three 

 distinct kinds of rhinoceros (i?. tichurhiims, R. megarhinus, 

 and R. hemitcec/ms). All these animals are extinct ; but the 

 hippopotamus which lived in the ancient Thames is not to 

 be distinguished from that now dwelling in Africa. The 

 brick-earths also contain the remains of a species of lion 

 {Felis spelaa), no longer living, but which is likewise found 

 in some of the bone-caves of this country. Among other 

 animals which lived here, at the same period, may be 



Fig. 84. — The 'i&iimmolii {Elephas primigeniiis). 



mentioned the brown bear, the grizzly bear, the spotted 

 hyaena, and two kinds of large wild oxen, — the bison and 

 the urus. The gigantic Irish " elk " (Cervus megaceros), which 

 is now extinct, has also left its bones in the brick-earth ; and 

 Professor Boyd Dawkins found, at Crayford, a skull of the 

 musk-sheep {Ovibos moschatus), which is a creature living at 

 the present day only in Arctic America. Most of these 

 are represented, not by a mere bone or two, indicating an 

 occasional straggler, but by remains so abundant as to show 

 that the animals which they represent were important 



