206 Man and the Pleistocene Mammals of Great Britain. 



Such, as there were, the animals with, which the first man 

 was surrounded, the mammoth, the horse, and the bison were 

 most abundant ; the reindeer was far more common than the 

 red-deer, and that again than the roe. The Tichorhine rhino- 

 ceros was more widely spread than the Leptorhine, and the 

 hippopotamus than the wild boar. The cave lion and cave 

 hyaena, wolf and fox, were moderately abundant, while the 

 badger | and brown bear were comparatively scarce. Among 

 them man appears for the first time in the world's history, 

 scantily armed, arid few in numbers, and by the exercise of 

 that intellect which separates him from the rest of the animal 

 world, asserted himself their king. His craft proved stronger 

 than their strength, and his cunning sharper than their claws 

 or teeth. In his time Great Britain formed part of the con- 

 tinent, and the Thames flowed northwards to join the Rhine 

 ;and Elbe in forming an estuary in the latitude of Berwick. 

 The climate, also, was so severe, that glaciers descended from 

 the mountains of Cambria, Scotland, and Wales, and the rein- 

 deer and musk-sheep could live in the lowlands. Then all 

 these conditions passed away, the land became depressed, 

 until Britain was insulated, and the waves of the Channel 

 rolled over what was before the great feeding-ground of the 

 Pleistocene herbivores, and the climate became warmer, until 

 the arctic mammalia were obliged to retreat northwards. 

 Coincident with this was the disappearance of the characteristic 

 Pleistocene mammalia from the restricted area of Great Britain, 

 and with them all traces of the first man, who spread over 

 Prance and Italy,* using the same implements, and therefore 

 possessed of the same habits, passed away. 



* This occurrence of implements of the Amiens and Abbeville type associated 

 ■with the remains of extinct mammalia in Italy, is proved by the discoveries of 

 M. Louis Caselli, President of the Society of Immaculate Conception, in the 

 gravel of Ponte Mammolo. — Correspondance de Rome, 4th May, 1867. 



