J. Lubbock on the Ancient Lake Habitations of Switzerland. 179 



The Ibex disappeared from most of the Swiss Alps, perhaps 

 not much later than the Elk. It lingered longest in the West. 

 In Glarus the last one perished in 1550, though near Chiavenna it 

 existed until the commencement of the 17th century, and in the 

 Tyrol until the second half of the 18th, while it still maintains 

 itself in the mountains surrounding Mont Iseran. 



The extermination of the Bear, like that of the Ibex, seems 

 to have begun in the East, and not vet to be complete, since this 

 animal still occurs in the Jura, in Wallis, and in the South East- 

 ern parts of Switzerland. 



The Fox, the Otter, and the different species of Weasels, are 

 still the common carnivora of Switzerland, and the Wild Cat, 

 the Badger, and the Wolf still occur in the Jura and the Alps, 

 the latter in cold winters venturing even into the plains. 



The Beaver on the contrary has at last disappeared. It has 

 Jong been very rare in Switzerland, but a few survived until the 

 oeginning of the present century, in Lucerne and Wallis. Bed 

 deer were abundant in the Jura and Black Forest in the twelfth 

 and thirteenth centuries, though they do not appear to have been 

 so large as those which lived in earlier times. The last was shot 

 in Basle, at the close of the eighteenth century, while in Western 

 Switzerland and Wallis they lingered somewhat longer. The 

 mleev still occurs in some places. . 



The fauna thus indicated is certainly very much what might 

 i^ave been expected. We find most of the species which char- 

 tenze the post-tertiary epoch in Europe. Some of the larger 

 ones have since fallen away in the struggle for existence, and 

 J>thers are becoming rarer and rarer every year, while some main- 

 fain themselves even now, thanks only to the inclemency and 

 J^accessibilitv of the mountainous regions which they inhabit. 

 Tbe graduafprocess of extermination which has continued ever 

 since, had however even then begun. ^ ^ „ . -r>., 



Taken as a whole, therefore, the animals of the Swiss Pile- 

 Jorks belong evidently to the Fauna, which commenced in post 

 J-ertiary times with the Mammoth, the Rhinoceros tichorhmus, 

 t^e Cave Bear and the fossil hyena. These extinct species ap- 

 pear to have coexisted in Europe with all of its present indigen- 

 ous inhabitants; it was, indeed, long supposed that man belonged 

 !J a subsequent period, but ricen? investigations have shown, 

 ^'^at he is no exception to the rule. ^ ^ ^^ 



^^ hile, however we must regard the Fauna of the Stone age 

 as belonging to the same Zoological epoclf with that of the later 

 l^^^feon the one hand, and the present time on the other; we 

 annot forget that the immense time which had elapsed since he 

 -^^^ofthe Tertiary period, has produced great clianges m the 

 ^''^^naof Europe. In this Post-tertiary era the Pileworks c- 



