418 S^monds — British Fossil Mammals. 



on the earth, but that the rest of the Eocene Mammalia had been 

 superseded by new forms, some of which present characters inter- 

 mediate between those of Eocene and those of Pliocene genera. The 

 Dinotherium and narrow-toothed Mastodon, for example, diminish the 

 interval between the LopJiiodon and the elephant," (Owen's Pal., 

 p. 343.) Dr. Falconer also shows how the great Proboscidians make 

 their first appearance in the Upper Miocenes, and were represented 

 in Europe by the great DinotJieriiim and Mastodon, and in India by 

 three sub-genera of elephants. (Pal. Memoirs, Vol. II., p. 13). 

 The Dinotherium was an aquatic animal like the hippopotamus, 

 but allied to the tapir, and had large tusks like those of the 

 walrus, but growing from the under jaw instead of the upper, as if 

 for the purpose of rooting up water plants. The Mastodons were 

 like the elephants, with the grinding teeth less complex in structure 

 and " adapted for bruising coarser vegetable substances." (Owen). 

 Four species inhabited Europe in Miocene times, one of which 

 (Mastodon angustidens) has left its remains among the fossil pond- 

 weeds of the ancient Swiss lake of QEningen. The Pangolins of 

 Africa, and the Manis of tropical Asia, which have now no living 

 representative in Europe, were nevertheless represented in Germany 

 in Miocene times by the Macr other ium, an edentate animal which 

 Cuvier calculated must be 24 feet in length. The first evidence of 

 the appearance of the deer-tribe dates from Upper Miocene times, 

 and with these are associated the remains of the lion-like and sabre- 

 toothed Machairodi, with species varying in size from that of a lion 

 to the size of a leopard. These powerful carnivora have left their 

 remains in the freshwater beds of Auvergne and of Eppelsheim, and 

 their descendants lived on to Post-glacial times, their teeth having 

 been found among those of the cave animals of Devonshire. Monkeys 

 lived in Miocene days where now the lofty Pyrenees rise, and one 

 of them, the Bryopithecus (tree-ape), equalled man in stature. 

 Another, closely allied to the Gibbon, called Pliopithecus, has been 

 also discovered in France, and a third, Semnopithecus, near Athens. 

 Associated with this monkey were the remains of Mastodon, Dino- 

 theres, Hipparion, Antilopes, and two Giraffes, the girafie being now 

 confined to the continent of Africa. 



The Pliocene Period. — The Pliocene period is that in which 

 there are more existing species of shells than there are of extinct 

 species, and in the older strata of this age there are nearly as many 

 shells of extinct species as there are of shells whose representatives 

 are still in existence. The fossil mammalia of the Pliocene epoch 

 are little known in England, but have been found in abundance in 

 the continental strata of this age in France and Italy. They differ 

 from those of Miocene times so far, that I believe there is not a single 

 species of quadruped which is common to the Miocene and Pliocene 

 strata of Auvergne. The Miocene genera of Auvergne became ex- 

 tinct before the Pliocene forms were buried in the tuffs, and below 

 the Pliocene lavas, but of all the large assemblage of Pliocene quad- 

 rupeds determined by M. Pomel, only two genera, the Mastodon and 

 a large genus of tiger, have become extinct. The Mastodon (if. 



