MK. R. LTDEKKEE, ON lOSSIL MAMMALIA FROM MARAGHA. 175 



improbable that the age of the Maragha beds may be somewhat 

 later than the Lower Pliocene. This suggestion is perhaps con- 

 firmed by the occurrence at llaragha of Rhinoceros Blanfordi, which, 

 in Baluchistan and Northern Sind is met with in the Lower Siwaliks, 

 accompanied by a variety of Mastodon aagustidens (characteristic of 

 the Middle Miocene of Europe), Ilyopotamus, and AntJiracotherium, 

 the age of the Lower Siwaliks being certainly not later than the 

 Upper Miocene, and not improbably being Lower Pliocene. As the 

 accompanying older forms are apparently not found at Maragb.a or 

 in the Pliocene of northern China, where 11. Blanfordi is again met 

 with, it is most probable that the Maragha beds are of later age 

 than the Lower Siwaliks. 



One of the most interesting and important points connected with 

 the Maragha deposits is the proof aiforded that the Pikermi fauna, 

 which has been traced as far northwards as Hungary, extended 

 to the north-western extremity of Persia, where it came in contact 

 with one member of the extreme western branch of the Siwalik 

 fauna of India, which branch differs widely from the more eastern 

 portion of that fauna, and exhibits a much more strongly marked 

 Palaearctic/rtCiVs. The same member (Rhinoceros Blanfordi) connects 

 the Erzerum-Maragha fauna with that of northern China, which' is 

 known to be in great part Oriental (Siwalik), and will not improbably 

 prove to be in part Palaearctic. The apparent occurrence of the 

 Pikermi species of Helladotherium at Maragha is important as con- 

 firming the provisional identification of the Siwalik species of that 

 genus with the former. Another feature calling for especial notice 

 is (with the foregoing exception) the apparent absence of eastern 

 Siwalik forms from the Maragha fauna ; and although subsequent 

 finds may, and very probably will, bring to light some common forms *, 

 yet this absence appears to be so marked that it seems to suggest 

 that even in Pliocene times there was a decided division, so far as 

 species are concerned, between the faunas of the Palaearctic and 

 Oriental regions, where the two came in contact on the north-western 

 frontier of India. If this view be borne out by future observations, 

 it would further suggest that some of those genera at present charac- 

 teristic of the Ethiopian region which are found in the Siwaliks and 

 are at present unknown elsewhere {e.g. Cgnocephalus f, Alcelaphus J, 

 and apparently Strepsiceros^, Hippotragus ||, and Cohus%) did not 

 make their way into Africa via northern Persia and Syria, but may 

 have passed through southern Baluchistan and Persia, and thence 

 across the gulfs of Oman and Aden, on a line connecting the present 

 Oriental and Ethiopian regions. Other modern Ethiopian genera, 

 however, like Giraffa and Hippopotamus, are known to have ranged 

 over the northern Oriental and the southern Palaearctic regions in 



* The apparent affinity of Mastodon pentelici to the western Siwalik 

 M. pandionis is very noteworthy ; but adult molars of the former are required 

 before their full affinity can be determined. 



t See • Cat. Foss. Mamm. Brit. Mus.' pt. i, p. 4 (1885). 



i Pnd. pt. ii. pp. 55, 5G (1885). 



§ Und. p. 47. II Ibid. p. 49. t ^w^- PP- 53, 64. 



