1872.] DAWKINS — CLASSIFICAXION OF PLEISTOCENE SIHATA. 419 



but successively, he has attempted to give the true sequence of 

 the invasion, and assigns all the French caves and river-deposits 

 to " I'age du grand ours des cavernes, I'age de I'elephant et du 

 rhinoceros, I'iige du renne, et I'age de I'aurochs." It seems to me 

 that there are several fatal objections to this very generally received 

 classification. It is necessary, in the first place, to show which of 

 these animals came here first, before we can say that the age of the 

 Cave-bear preceded that of the Mammoth, or the age of the Mam- 

 moth that of the lleindeer, or lastlj^ the age of the Eeindeer that 

 of the Aurochs. "\Ve must know for certain that this was the true 

 order of their advent ; and of this M. Lartet has not advanced any 

 satisfactory proof. It is certainly true that the Mammoth was in. 

 occupation of the Thames vaUey and of the area which is now 

 covered by the German Ocean before the lleindeer had arrived. 

 That this must necessarily have been the case follows from the fact 

 that the former is a less arctic animal than the latter — being found 

 in the forest-bed of Norfolk, which is proved by its vegetation to 

 have been accumulated under temperate conditions, as well as in 

 company with the Mastodon in the lower basin of the Mississippi. 

 As the evidence stands at present, the Mammoth occupied the same 

 area as the Cave-bear in the Early Pleistocene times, and is as 

 clearly entitled to the first place in classification as the latter 

 animal. If we consider the conditions under which the Pleistocene 

 mammalia invaded Pliocene Europe, we can see at once why the 

 Mammoth preceded the lleindeer. The temperate climate gradually 

 became colder in France, Germany and Britain ; and as the cold 

 became more intense in the northern portions, the animals fitted for 

 a cold climate passed southwards and westwards. In this great 

 migration the animals adapted for a temperate or moderately severe 

 climate would be the first to arrive. Were the chmate of the 

 extreme north to become so intense as to prevent the sojourn of the 

 lleindeer and Musk-sheep on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and to 

 affect the whole of the Continent, there would be a steady drift of 

 mammal life from north to south ; the Elk and the Wapiti would 

 invade the country of the Bisons, and leave their own district to be 

 occupied by the lleindeer and the Musk-sheep. Indeed, speaking 

 roughly, the zones of animal life which are centred round the north 

 would not alter their relative position, but would be pushed further 

 south, as it were, en masse. If the severity increased, the Eeindeer 

 would eventually reach the country of the Bisons, but only to find 

 it in possession of the rearguard of Elks. From this analogy it 

 follows that the animals Avhich are now living in the temperate 

 regions and which lived in Pleistocene Europe, arrived before 

 their more arctic fellow immigrants. And if this be admitted, the 

 Mammoth, the Irish Elk, and the Aurochs are at least as fairly 

 entitled to occupy the first place in classification as the Cave-bear. 

 In Britain the first of these animals has been obtained from the Forest- 

 bed, as well as the Cave-bear, and is therefore of precisely the same 

 relative antiquity. The foreign strata offer no evidence on this point. 

 A second objection to this theory is to be found in the fact that it 



