174 MR. R. LTDEKKER ON POSSIL MAMMALIA FROM MARAGHA. 



HelJadotherium, H. Duvernoyi (which is probably common to the 

 Pikermi beds and the Siwaliks *), while they confirm the suggested 

 identity of the Hyaena with H. eximia. They point moreover to 

 the presence of Felis 'breviro§,tris of the Upper Pliocene of the 

 Auvergne ; to a species of Rhinoceros (which may or may not be 

 identical with the one identified by Dr. Grewingk with R. anti- 

 quitatis) apparently intermediate between R. antiquitatis and the 

 Siwalik R. jplatyrhinus, which is not improbably an ancestral form 

 of the former ; and also to R. Blanfordi f, which was first recorded 

 by myself J from the north-western frontier of India §, and has 

 been subsequently described by Dr. Ernst Koken || from the 

 (probably) Pliocene of southern China, where it occurs in association 

 "with. Mastodon^ Tapiyms, Hipparion, Chcdicotherium, Giraffa, Hycena^ 

 <fec. This last species appears, therefore, to have ranged from 

 north-western Persia through Baluchistan, the Punjab, and thence, 

 probably via Tibet ^, to China. 



Prom strata of unknown age at Erzerum, in Armenia, Dr. Palconer 

 many years ago described some elephant molars under the name of 

 Elephas armeniacus ; and as Erzerum is comparatively near to Tabriz, 

 it may be suggested that some of the Maragha elephants' teeth may 

 not improbably belong to this species ; but be this as it may, the 

 Erzerum and Maragha faunas may be geographically grouped 

 together. There is in the British Museum an elephant's molar from 

 China (No. 29007), which has been suggested to belong to this 

 species ; and if this were correct it would seem that the range of 

 E. armeniacus was somewhat the same as that of Rhinoceros Blan- 

 fordi, i. e. that it extended from western Asia through the regions 

 lying to the north of India to China ; I am, however, disposed to refer 

 the specimen to E. namadicus. The structure of the molars of 

 E. armeniacus is such that this species might well have been an 

 ancestral form allied to both E. primigeniiis and E. indicus ; and its 

 geographical distribution is such as to harmonize with this view. 



Putting aside on the present occasion the Pleistocene and existing 

 species recorded by Dr. Grewingk from Maragha, the majority of 

 the other members of the Maragha fauna agree so closely with the 

 fauna of the Pikermi beds that there can be no hesitation in adopting 

 the views of the German palseontologists as to the one fauna being 

 the representative of the other. The occurrence, however, of Felis 

 hrevirostris in the Maragha beds, coupled with the suggestion that 

 Elephas armeniacus may also be found there, together with the now 

 well-ascertained fact that the older mammalian types survived in 

 Asia long after they had disappeared from Europe, renders it not 



* See ' Cat. Foss. Mamm. Brit. Mus.' pt. ii. p. 71 (1885). 

 t Syn. Aceratherium Blanfordi ; I propose for the future to include Acera- 

 therium in Rhinoceros. 



I Palffiontologia Indica, ser, 10, vol. iii. p. 2 (1884). 



§ Dera Biigti in Baluchistan, and the Biigti Hills to the north of Jacobabod 

 in Sind. 



II Pal. Abhandl. vol. iii. pt. 2, p. 18 (1885). 



^ This may be the Rhinoceros recorded by Falconer and Cautley from 

 Hundes in Western Tibet. 



