104 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Jan. 9, 



attribute the occurrence of the remains of these two species in the 

 same deposits. The headquarters of the Elephas antiquus, into 

 which the Mammoth never penetrated, was in Pleistocene times 

 Southern Europe, bounded to the north by the Alps and the 

 Pyrenees — -just as that of the Mammoth, in which Elephas antiquus 

 has never been discovered, is North Germany and the large wooded 

 plains of Northern Russia. The debateable district, over which each 

 of these species ranged according to the season, would, on this 

 hypothesis, be the districts between these two areas, England and 

 Central Europe, where their remains have been found commingled : 

 the fact that the varying temperature in northern regions now 

 regulates the migration of the herbivores, and causes a continual 

 oscillation of animals* to and fro over a given area, lends great 

 weight to these views. The third species of Elephant, E. priscuSj 

 has only been determined by the late Dr. Falconer in three British 

 localities — Grays Thurrock in Essex, an uncertain locality in the 

 Thames valley, and in the forest-bed of the coast between Cromer 

 and Lowestoft. It occurs also in Italy (in the PKocene strata of the 

 Eomagna) and possibly in Central France. The Horse varies con- 

 siderably in size; and to those who think themselves justified in 

 ascribing the larger remains to the true Horse, and the smaller to 

 the Zebra, Quagga, or Ass, there may seem reason for believing that 

 two species or varieties of Equus were living at the time the Lower 

 Brick-earths of the Thames valley were being deposited f. The ex- 

 amination, however, of a very large series of Equine remains from 

 all parts of England, and from Pleistocene deposits in France and 

 Germany, leads me to the conclusion that, in the days before Man's 

 influence in modifying the animals in contact with him was felt, there 

 was considerable variation in the size of the Horse, dependent probably 

 upon various conditions of life, food, habitat, and cHmate; and as these 

 varieties constitute an unbroken series from animals of the largest 

 to those of the smallest size, there being no difference of form, I 

 see no reason for M. Puel's X and Professor Owen's insertion of the 

 Ass into the hstof the Pleistocene mammalia. The range of the Equus 

 fossilis was coextensive with that of the Mammoth in the Pleis- 

 tocene period ; it is unknown in the Pliocene strsfta of France, Ger- 

 many, and Italy; and its first appearance is in the Praeglacial forest- 

 bed of Norfolk. It cannot be differentiated specifically from the 

 common Horse. 



We have already seen the unequal ranges of the three species of 

 fossil Elephant ; the species of E-hinoceros found in the deposits 

 under consideration afford an exact parallel. The stout-limbed 

 massive tichorhine Bhinoceros, possessed of two horns, and with 

 foldless skin, ranged throughout Pleistocene Europe and Asia, north 

 of a line passing through the Alps, Pyrenees, the head of the 

 Caspian, and Lake Baikal. This species did not cross, along with the 



* See "Introduction to British Pleistocene Mammalia," Palaeont. Soc. vol. for 

 1864, p. 46 et seq. 



t See Owen, article " Equus," Foss. Mamm. 8vo, 1846. 

 + Bull. Soc. Geol. Fr. 2'«^ serie, torn. ix. p. 244, 1854. 



