420 rEOCEEDIISfGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [JunC 5, 



presupposes that every collection of fossils fotind in a cave or river- 

 deposit is likely to furnish a complete set of the animals living in the 

 country at the time. The den of an Hyaena could hardly be expected to 

 afford the same animals as those which are found in river-deposits; and 

 the abode of a Cave-bear would most certainly contain a different suite 

 of remains. If indeed the present distribution of animals be any clue 

 to that of the Pleistocene, the very diversity which M. Lartet insists 

 upon as representing different periods of time must necessarily have 

 resulted from the same country being occupied by different animals 

 at the same time. The Bear and Hysena were living in the caves at 

 the same time that the neighbouring river-vallej^s were occupied by 

 the Mammoth, the Eeindeer, and the Aurochs. Nor indeed does the 

 classification apply even to the few eases on which the generalization 

 is based. That of Aurignac*, for instance, is referred to the period of 

 the Cave-bear, although the Reindeer, Mammoth, and Aurochs are 

 also present. The caves of the Dordognef, which have furnished 

 such wonderful traces of the civilization of the hunter during those 

 ancient times, are considered to belong to the Eeindeer age, although 

 the Mammoth has been found in no less than four out of the same 

 series. A study of the distribution of these animals through the 

 caves of France, Britain, and Germany has convinced me that three 

 out of the four are worthless for the purpose of classification, since in 

 the great majority of cases the four animals are associated together 

 in the caves, and very generally also three out of the four in the river- 

 deposits. And although the evidence seems pretty clear that the 

 Eeindeer arrived in Europe after these three animals, it competed 

 with them for a very long time in the same area. As, also, the arctic 

 climate gradually became temperate, it ought, a priori, to have been 

 the first to retreat northwards, leaving the three others behind — the 

 Aurochs to survive in the forests of Lithuania, and the other two to 

 become extinct. "VVe have no proof as to which of these became 

 extinct first. The climatal change which was sufficient to banish 

 the Eeindeer from the south of France and from Central Germany 

 had certainly not taken place during the latest stage of the Pleistocene ; 

 and the occurrence of that animal in the peat under the alluvium of 

 the Thames, at Crossness, proves that it lived as far south as Kent 

 in the Prehistoric age. In all probability, during some part of the 

 vast interval which exists between the Pleistocene and the Prehistoric 

 periods, it had become extinct in Central and Southern Europe, since 

 it has not been discovered in any deposits in those regions which can 

 be referred to the latter period. For these reasons M. Lartet's 

 generalizations seem to me to be untenable, although it be true that 

 the Cave-bear, Mammoth, and Aurochs arrived in Europe before 

 the Eeindeer, and the last-named animal departed from France and 

 Germany before the Aurochs. 



* See Ann. des Sc. Nat. Zool. 1861, p. 213. 



t The materials for coming to a conclusion as to the Mammalia of Perigord 

 have been afforded by the ' EeliquiiB Aquitanicse " and the "Cavernes du Perigord " 

 (Eevue Archeol., Avril 1864), by M. Ed. Lartet and H. Christy, and by the 

 examination of some of the remains in the Christy Museum. 



