INTRODUCTION. Xlll 



the less aberrant Ungulates, yet it cannot be regarded as the direct 

 ancestor of any known member of that family ; and the latter is to 

 all intents and purposes a perfect Elephant, in the widest sense of 

 that term. Our comparatively full knowledge of the Lower-Miocene 

 and Upper- Eocene Mammalian faunas of the greater part of Europe 

 and North America (where the Proboscidea are unknown till the 

 Pliocene) renders it almost certain that neither of those regions 

 was the home of the direct ancestors of the Elephantidce ; and we 

 must therefore look forward to the discovery of mammaliferous 

 Lower-Miocene or Upper -Eocene strata in some other region of the 

 (probably Old) World, which may yield these missing forms. There 

 is, however, but little chance of the occurrence of such beds in India, 

 and our main hope must therefore be directed to other parts of Asia, 

 or Africa, if indeed these regions were ever populated in early 

 Tertiary times by the larger Mammalia. 



In regard to geographical distribution there appears to be con- 

 siderable evidence in favour of an easterly migration of the Masto- 

 dons having taken place from Europe to India ] ; while the restriction 

 of the stegodont group of Elephants to the latter country and the 

 regions to the eastward, points to the conclusion that the transition 

 from the Mastodons to the higher Elephants took place in those 

 regions ; from which we may also infer that there subsequently 

 ensued a westerly migration of these higher forms to Europe, and 

 finally on to North America, where the true Elephants did not make 

 their appearance till the Pleistocene, and then appear to have been 

 represented only by two species, one of which ranged over the 

 greater part of the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere. 



B. Geological Horizons. 

 The quotation in the present and the two previous Parts of many 

 mammaliferous localities not mentioned in the table of strata given 

 on pp. x, xi of the first Parr, renders it advisable to give a fuller 

 list of European Tertiary horizons. The following table differs from 

 the one above referred to by the inclusion of the Eppelsheim beds 

 in the Lower Pliocene instead of in the Upper Miocene, the writer 

 being now convinced that this view, which is adopted by nearly all 

 English and German palaeontologists, is the correct one 2 . 



1 See ' Palaeontologia Indica' (Mem. Geol. Sury. India), ser. 10, vol. iii. 

 pp. 17, 18. 



2 The beds of Mont Leberon and Cucuron in Yaucluse are included in the 

 Lower Pliocene, both on account of the similarity of their fauna to that of the 

 Pikermi beds, and also because they overlie marine beds correlated with tbe 



