CLIMATE OF PLEISTOCENE PERIOD. 67 



that the climate of Europe generally at that time was equable 

 and humid. Clement winters and cool summers permitted the 

 wide diffusion and intimate association of plants which have 

 now a very different range — temperate and southern species like 

 the ash, the poplar, the sycamore, the fig-tree, the judas-tree, the 

 laurel, etc., overspread all the low grounds of France as far north 

 at least as Paris. It was under such conditions that the ele- 

 phants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses, and the vast herds of 

 temperate cervine and bovine species ranged over Europe, from 

 the shores of the Mediterranean up to the latitude of Yorkshire, 

 and probably even farther north still ; and from the borders of 

 Asia to the Western Ocean. Despite the presence of numerous 

 fierce carnivora — lions, hyaenas, tigers, and others — Europe at 

 that time, with its shady forests, its laurel-margined streams, its 

 broad and deep-flowing rivers, — a country in every way suited 

 to the needs of a race of hunters and fishers, — must have been 

 no unpleasant habitation for Palaeolithic man. 



This, however, is only one side of the picture. There was a 

 time when the climate of Pleistocene Europe presented the 

 strongest contrast to those genial conditions — a time when the 

 dwarf birch of the Scottish Highlands, and the Arctic willow, 

 with their northern congeners, grew upon the low grounds of 

 Middle Europe. Arctic animals, such as the musk-sheep and 

 the reindeer, lived then, all the year round, in the south of 

 Erance ; the mammoth ranged into Spain and Italy ; the glutton 

 descended to the shores of the Mediterranean ; the marmot came 

 down to the low grounds at the foot of the Apennines ; and the 

 lagomys inhabited the low-lying maritime districts of Corsica 

 and Sardinia. The land- and freshwater-shells of many Pleis- 

 tocene deposits tell a similar tale; boreal, high -alpine, and 

 hyperborean forms, are characteristic of these accumulations in 

 Central Europe ; even in the southern regions of our continent 

 the shells testify to a former colder and wetter climate. It was 

 during the climax of these conditions that the caves of Aqui- 

 taine were occupied by those artistic men who appear to have 

 delighted in carving and engraving. 



