34 FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 



rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, accompanied with innumerable 

 bones of horses, and many of the larger ruminantia. This 

 new animal kingdom was devastated by carnivora, of the mag- 

 nitude and generic characters of the lion, the tiger, and the 

 hyaena. This population, the remains of which extend to the 

 extremity of the north, and the borders of the Frozen ocean, 

 has, generally speaking, nothing congeneric at present, except 

 in the torrid zone, but in all cases a specific difference is suffi- 

 ciently marked. 



Among these species are the elephas primigeniuSj or mam- 

 moth of the Russians, whose remains are found from Spain to 

 the coasts of Siberia, and throughout all North America ; the 

 mastodon, with narrow teeth, common in the temperate parts 

 of Europe and the mountains of South America; the great 

 mastodon, in immense abundance in North America ; an hip- 

 popotamus, very common in England, Germany, France, and 

 Italy, and a smaller species ; three rhinoceroses, chiefly in Ger- 

 many and England ; a gigantic tapir, in Germany and France, 

 and an apparently extinct genus, resting on a single fragment, 

 discovered in Siberia, and called elasmotherium by Fischer. 



The bones of the horses are not so clearly determined to belong 

 to distinct species. Of the ruminantia several species may be 

 pronounced distinct, particularly a stag superior in size to the 

 elk, common in the marie and peat of England and Ireland, 

 and whose remains have also been found in Italy, France, and 

 Germany ; among the elephantine bones of the deer and ox of 

 the caverns, and osseous breccia, which appertain to the same 

 era, we cannot speak so decidedly. It appears, however, pretty 

 clearly that they were not native to the climate ; and what is 

 most singular, the bones of the rein-deer, an animal now confined 

 to the inhospitable regions of the north, are located with the 

 remains of the inhabitants of the tropics. We must not, how- 

 ever, omit to notice, that many of the positions from which the 

 bones of ruminantia have been taken, are not sufficiently veri- 

 fied to warrant us in deciding that they were contemporaneous 



