162 TEN years' progress in vertebrate paleontology 



These are the chief additions to our knowledge of African fossil mam- 

 mals of the last decade of mammalian paleontology. There are a few 

 scattered records in Xorth Africa and South Africa of fragmentary 

 Pleistocene fossils, somewhat archaic in aspect and suggestive of the late 

 Pliocene fauna of Europe. Far more important than these is the recent 

 discovery of remains of Tertiary mammals in central Africa on the east 

 side of the A^ictoria Xyanza. The first fragments found were reported 

 by Doctor Andrews to include Dinotherium, a small rhinoceros, and sev- 

 eral other genera, and the locality is now being investigated by an expe- 

 dition from the British Museum. 



Conclusions 



The general conclusions Avarranted by the above discoveries are : 

 (1) Africa during the Eocene was an isolated continent like Tertiary 

 South America, and like Australia still is. It developed a peculiar mam- 

 malian fauna from primitive placental ancestors, which must have reached 

 it about the end of the Cretaceous. This fauna included the Arsinoi- 

 theres and Hyracoids, and more doubtfully the Proboscideans. (2) The 

 autochthonic fauna was overwhelmed during the Oligocene by invaders 

 from the north, and has left only a few survivors {Hyra.v, perhaps Ele- 

 phas). The recent discoveries in central Africa may perhaps solve the 

 question whether the European invaders had completely supplanted the 

 authochthonous fauna in the Miocene; but in Pleistocene and modern 

 Africa only one or two traces are left. (3) The mammalian fauna of 

 Madagascar does not appear in the light of present knowledge to be a 

 survival of an early Tertiary African fauna, but rather a composite 

 fauna, disharmonic, like that of oceanic islands, originating not from 

 one or several faunal invasions, but several arrivals of single genera at 

 different times. 



ARTIODACTYLA 

 BY 0. A. PETERSON 



The present status of work in Vertebrate Paleontology in connection 

 with the suborder Artiodactyla during the past decade is a broad subject 

 which I can not claim the ability to treat here with full justice, although 

 the Council of our Society assigned the work to me. I can not enter into 

 details and will only touch on a few points which to me appear of most 

 importance and prominence, while appended hereto is a bibliography 

 with especial reference to proposed families, genera, species, and sub- 

 species for the past ten or twelve years. 



