CHAP. VI.] 
MAMMALIA OF THE OLD WORLD. 
117 
not only find great felines, surpassing in size and destructive 
power the lions and leopards of Africa, with hyaenas of a size 
and in a variety not to be equalled now, but also huge rhino- 
ceroses and elephants, two forms of giraffes, and a host of 
antelopes, which, from the sample here obtained, were probably 
quite as numerous and varied as they now are in Africa. 
Joined with this abundance of antelopes we have the absence 
of deer, which probably indicates that the country was open 
and somewhat of a desert character, since there were deer in 
other parts of Europe at this epoch. The occurrence of but a 
single species of monkey is also favourable to this view, since 
a well-wooded country would most likely have supplied many 
forms of these animals. 
Miocene Fauna of Central and Western Europe. 
We have now to consider the Miocene fauna of Europe 
generally, of which we have very full information from nu- 
merous deposits of this age in France, Switzerland, Italy, 
Germany, and Hungary. 
Primates . — Three distinct forms of monkeys have been found 
in Europe — in the South of France, in Switzerland, and Wnrtem- 
berg ; one was very like Colobus or Semnopithecus ; the others— 
Pliopithecus and Dryopithecus — were of higher type, and be- 
longed to the anthropomorphous apes, being nearest to the genus 
Ilylobates or gibbons. Both have occurred in the South of France. 
The Dryopithecus was a veiy large animal (equal to the gorilla), 
and M. Lartet considers that in the character of its dentition it 
approached nearer to man than any of the existing anthropoid 
apes. 
Insectivora. — These small animals are represented by numerous 
remains belonging to four families and a dozen genera. Of 
Erinaceus (hedgehog) several species are found in the Upper 
Miocene ; and in the Lower Miocene of Auvergne two extinct 
genera of the same family — Amphechinus and Tetracus — have 
been discovered. Several species of Talpa (mole) occur in the 
Upper Miocene of France, while the extinct Dinylus is from Ger- 
many, and Palceospalax from the Lower Miocene of the Isle of 
