n PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



rat and possibly the true elk. The present wild animals of Europe are merely the survivors 

 of a large and varied group that lived on the Pleistocene continent, the characteristic 

 Pleistocene members of which have disappeared one by one from the incidence of various 

 causes. And yet there is a striking difference, which cannot be overlooked, between 

 the Pleistocene and the succeeding life-periods. In the Introduction to the British. 

 Pleistocene Mammalia, 1 and subsequently, and at greater length, in the ' Proceedings of 

 the Prehistoric Congress/ 3 I have classified the Post-pleistocene phenomena strictly from 

 the stand-point offered by history. All those of which there is any record are termed 

 historic, while those which lie outside history are termed prehistoric. 



The Prehistoric extends from the borders of history back to the Pleistocene Period, 

 and is characterised by the advent of the swine, dog, sheep, goat, and the domestic horse 

 and oxen into Europe under the care of man. The invasion of Europe by this group of 

 life is from a zoological point of view of the very highest importance, since from that 

 time the domestic animals have been in continual rivalry with the wild, and have gradu- 

 ally encroached on the ancient haunts of the latter. It requires no extraordinary fore- 

 sight to see that this process will go on, until the few wild animals left to represent the 

 Pleistocene Fauna will be preserved in Europe merely for the sport and luxury of the 

 wealthy classes. The beginning of this revolution in animal life is the great event which 

 distinguishes the Prehistoric from the Pleistocene Period, and, coupled with the disap- 

 pearance of the characteristic animals of the latter period, such as the mammoth and 

 woolly rhinoceros, constitutes a difference of very high classificatory value. There is, to 

 say the least, as much difference between the Prehistoric and Pleistocene Mammalia as 

 between the latter and the Pleiocene. 



Sir Charles Lyell massed together the Prehistoric and Historic divisions under the head 

 " Recent," 3 using the term in relation to the enormous antiquity of the preceding geolo- 

 gical period, and giving as a characteristic difference the absence of all the extinct mam- 

 malia. The presence, however, of the extinct Irish elk in the peat-bogs of Ireland, 

 Scotland, and England, which form one of the recent divisions, renders it impossible to 

 accept the definition. It seems to be far more convenient to draw a distinction between 

 the Prehistoric and the Historic animals than to mass them together in one group. 

 Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the only difference between their respective groups 

 of mammalia is presented by the gradual disappearance of the larger wild animals from 

 certain areas, the extinction of one, the Irish elk, and the importation and naturalisation 

 of a few species, such as the buffalo in Italy and the fallow-deer in Britain, by the hand of 

 man. 



The Prehistoric Period includes the age of polished stone, or the neolithic, the bronze, 



1 Palaeontograpbical Society vol. for 1864 ; Introduction, 'Brit. Pleistocene Mammalia,' by W. Boyd 

 Dawkins and W. A. Sanford. 



2 'International Congress of Prehistoric Archaeology,' Norwich, volume for 1868, p. 269. 



3 ' Antiquity of Man,' chapter i ; < Student's Elements of Geology,' pp. 108-9. 



