GUIDE TO THE DEPARTMENT 



OF 



GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY. 



SOUTH-EAST GALLERY. 



Vertebrate Animals.* 

 Class 1.— MAMMALIA. 



The Cases in the South-east Gallery are devoted to the ex- Gallery 



hibition of the remains of Animals of the class Mammalia, f the 2£[_f' on 



great proportion of which are only met with as petrifactions or 



fossils in those newer layers known to geologists as the Tertiary 



and Quaternary deposits, forming the more superficial part of 



the earth's crust. (See Table of Strata, p. x.) Earlier traces See Table- 



•of such animals are comparatively rare, and a very few re- p av iii on " ' 



mains of the lower types, which are mostly extremely small in Gallery, 



size, occur in rocks of Secondary age. For example, the skull ^ - 2 > on 



of a small mammal, named Tritylodon longcevus, from the Trias 



of Basn to-land, South Africa : Microlestes Moorei (represented 



by teeth only), from the RhaBtic beds of Somerset, and M. anti- 



qiius from the Trias of Germany ; Drornatherium, from North 



America ; and other species, small but more numerous, from 



the Great Oolite of Stonesfield, and the Purbeck beds of 



England and America. Seven years ago (1889) Prof. 0. C. 



* In this great division of the Animal Kingdom are included all animals 

 "which possess a backbone. 



t Animals that suckle their young ; in this class are included, besides 

 man. all the higher animals. 



' (1876) b 



