520 



CENOZOIO ERA— AGE OF MAMMALS. 



destroyed by the deluge. The length was about four feet. It was re- 

 served for Cuvier to show that the fossil was not human, though the 

 name Andrias Scheuchzeri (Fig. 891) had become permanently at- 

 tached to it through Scheuchzer's mistake. A 

 living species of the same genus is now found in 

 Japan, and is of gigantic size. A representation 

 of it is given in Fig. 892, for comparison with its 

 fossil precursor. The Miocene of the Himalayas 

 furnishes a gigantic turtle (Colossochelys Atlas), 

 the carapace of which was twelve feet long and 

 eight feet wide, and seven feet high in the roof, 

 and the whole animal was probably twenty feet j 

 long. Over sixty species of 

 Tertiary turtles, and eight- 

 een or twenty species of 

 crocodiles, have been "de- 

 scribed from foreign coun- 

 tries (Dana). 



The Crocodilians, the 

 highest living order of rep- 

 tiles, first appeared in the 

 Triassic, but only in gener- 

 alized forms — Stagonolepis, 

 Belodon, etc.— which close- 

 ly connected them with the 

 Lizards. From this early 

 form Huxley has traced 

 with consummate skill the 

 gradual differentiation of 

 this order, in the position 

 of the posterior nares, the structure of the head and the form of the 

 vertebral bodies, step by step through the Jurassic, Cretaceous, to the 

 Tertiary, where the type reached its perfection. 



Birds. — The class of Birds in the Cretaceous was represented only 

 by the reptilian birds and ordinary water birds. Now, in the Tertiary, 

 however, the reptilian birds — vertebrated-tailed and socket-toothed — 

 have disappeared. The bird-class is fairly differentiated from the rep- 

 tilian class, and the connecting links destroyed. Birds of all kinds now 

 appear^ — land-birds as well as water-birds. In America, among land- 

 birds, woodpeckers, owls, eagles, etc., have been discovered and de- 

 scribed by Marsh. The number of species found in Europe is much 

 greater than in America. The Miocene beds of Central France alone 

 have, according to Milne-Edwards, afforded seventy species. The Mio- 

 cene birds, like the plants and insects, show a decided tropical charac- 



FlG. 



Fig. 892. 



Figs. 891, 892.— 891. Andrias Scheuchzeri, Miocene of 

 Switzerland x T ^, (after Heer). 892. Andrias Japonic 

 a, a living Salamander from Japan, x ^ (after Heer.) 



