PRELIMINARY TREATISE. m 



range of certain creatures over areas in which they are not now living points to a change 

 in climate and condition of life. The European wolf would obviously not have been 

 introduced into England or Ireland by the hand of man, nor could it have crossed over 

 the existing seas, and therefore it must have arrived before these impassable geographical 

 barriers were formed. That the European lion lingered in the mountainous region of 

 Thessaly as late, to say the least, as the days of Xenophon, is evidence of a sparsely 

 populated, uncultivated district, just as the ancient sojourn of the reindeer in Caithness 

 proves that the climate in Scotland was more severe formerly than at the present day. 

 In all respects the Mammalia are worthy of notice, but more especially from the 

 fact that they constitute a strong bond of union between geology, archaeology, and 

 history — three branches of human knowledge that at first sight appear isolated from each 

 other. 



The conclusions which may be drawn from the Mammalia as to the changes which 

 have taken place in climate and geography are most important. The caves of Great 

 Britain throw light on those of France, Belgium, and Germany, and together with those 

 of Spain, Malta, and Sicily, enable us to restore, in some measure, the various states 

 through which the continent has passed, outside the reach of history ; and the deposits 

 of ancient rivers enable us to complete the sketch. The sequence of events with which 

 we have to deal is, to say the least, as trustworthy as that offered by the historian. 

 Indeed, our evidence is, in a sense, more trustworthy than that on which the historical 

 narrative is based. Our facts have not been tampered with, or coloured by filtration 

 through the mind of a chronicler more or less biassed. His must be carefully sifted and 

 analysed before they can be used at all. Nor is our prehistoric record more broken or 

 superficial than that offered by the historian, which consists, in the main, of battles, and 

 sieges, and treaties, and the foreign relations of the country which is described, but 

 which tells us little or nothing of the domestic and social life of the people on which true 

 national greatness really depends. We know almost as little of the social life of 

 Britain under the Romans, as of that of the savages who lived on the Pfahlbauten of 

 Switzerland, or who hunted the reindeer in Auvergne. We know almost as little of the 

 inhabitants of Pompeii as of the buried Neolithic villages of Santorin. 



The important question of the divisions of time, outside the reach of history, must be 

 examined, as well as the value of the animals in classification, the migration of species, 

 and the incoming and the disappearance of certain groups. The introduction of the 

 domestic animals, also, must be treated, — a point on which history and archaeology 

 between them offer most valuable testimony. 



The method of investigation adopted in this treatise is to start from a firm basis of 

 history, and then to pass backwards in time to the consideration of the animals which 

 have left their remains as the sole evidence of their former existence in the several 

 countries. I shall pass from the Historic to the Prehistoric, and then, finally, to the 

 Pleistocene groups of animals. 



