﻿xlviii INTRODUCTION. 



elsewhere ; and lastly, that it was subject to oscillations by which the migrations of the 

 herbivores were directed northward or southward, as the case may have been. 



The remarkable evidence afforded by the thick woolly covering on the carcases of the 

 mammoth and tichorhine rhinoceros of Siberia, as to the temperature of the countries in 

 which they lived, makes it very probable that the Hippopotamus major was in like manner 

 defended from the cold ; but at the same time we must bear in mind that the aquatic habits 

 of the genus are incompatible with the severity of a climate suited to the reindeer ; that it 

 has not been found in Russia, nor in any of the vast deposits in the high northern 

 latitudes ; and that therefore it is rather to be put into the same category with the bison of 

 North America, rather than the reindeer, as an occasional visitant rather than a dweller 

 throughout the year in England, France, and Germany. Its remains are very rare, as com- 

 pared with the other herbivores, the fossil elephants, rhinoceroses, Irish elks, bisons, rein- 

 deer, and the like. Its head-quarters probably were on the shores of the Mediterranean, 

 and the north of Africa, from which latter locality M. Gervaise 1 cites it as occurring in a 

 fossil state near Constantine, in Algeria. In the caverns on the European shores its 

 remains are extremely abundant, as also in the Italian Pliocenes. 2 



There is another interesting point connected with climate. How it may be asked, can 

 you reconcile the presence of the spelaean hyaena and the lion with the climate which the 

 reindeer and the musk-sheep required for their existence ? Is not the very fact of their 

 coexistence with the reindeer a proof of their specific distinctness from the African or 

 Asiatic lion, or the hyaena of the Cape ? If they are identical in species must not the 

 Pleistocene climate have been similar to that of the countries in which they now live ? An 

 appeal to the zoological distribution of the carnivora over wide areas, proves that it is not 

 so. While the herbivora are dependant upon the temperature for the vegetation on which 



1 Tom. cit., p. 363. 



2 The occurrence of hippopotamus may be accounted for in a somewhat different manner. While 

 we may be almost certain that the general climate of Britain, during the Postglacial epoch, has been 

 more severe or, properly speaking, more extreme or continental than at present, a period or periods of 

 some length may have intervened, while England and Ireland formed a portion of the European continent, 

 when the climate may have been less severe, and the rivers free from ice throughout the year. This view 

 of the case is strengthened by the fact that the fossil hippopotamus is frequently, if not generally, accom- 

 panied by forms of elephant and rhinoceros i. e. Elephas antiquus and Rhinoceros leptorhinus, which appear 

 both in this hemisphere, and as far as E. antiquus is concerned, in America also, to have had a southern, 

 and even a tropical, rather than a northern range. Among other facts which must be accounted for is the 

 existence of a Lusitanian flora on the west coast of Ireland. This flora, or some member of it at least, with 

 difficulty maintain their ground at the sea-level, and must have been exterminated by the severity of the 

 glacial epoch ; and we cannot suppose but that their migration from a southern land has occurred since, and 

 that along a coast-line. It is true that Professor Forbes assigned the Miocene period as that of this migra- 

 tion, but he appears to have overlooked the great severity of the intervening glacial climate. 



On these points compare, Forbes's " Flora and fauna of the British Isles," ' Mem. Geol. Survey,' vol. i, p. 

 336 et seq. ; Trimmer, ' Quart. Journ. of Geol. Soc.,' vol ix, p. 13, 1853; Lyell, 'Ant. of Man,' ed. 1863, 

 pp. 273 et 320; Croll, ' Nat. Hist. Review,' No. xx, p. 594 ; and authors quoted by them. — W. A. S. 



