THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
117 
the whole of these, with the exception of one 
bone of a bird, belonging to mammals. As 
another collection of at least equal extent has 
been acquired by the Museum at Geneva, the 
importance of this newly discovered fossil fauna 
may be readily estimated. 
The discovery of this ossiferous deposit, taken 
in conjunction with that of the equivalent beds 
at Maragha, in Persia, which were brought to the 
notice of scientific world only a few years ago, in- 
dicates that there is still hope of much further 
knowledge of the Tertiary mammalian fauna 
being eventually obtained by the full exploration 
of regions lying beyond the European area. As 
we have already mentioned, the Samos deposits 
are the equivalents in point of time with those 
of Pikermi in 
Attica, and of 
Maragha in Per - 
sia ; this identi- 
fication resting 
upon the general 
similarity of the 
fauna of the 
three areas, al- 
though each lo- 
cality has some 
peculiar types 
not known in 
the others. The 
researches of Mr, 
W. T. Blanford and others have shown that we 
must assign a Pliocene age to the deposits at 
Pikermi. And with our present knowledge, the 
Pikermi fauna may now be traced from Baltavar 
in Hungary, though Greece, thence to Samos, 
Persia, Baluchistan, the Punjab, and so to the 
Siwalik Hills of Northern India, the mammalian 
fauna of which was the first to be brought to 
light though the classic labours of Falconer and 
Cautley. From this fauna, which forms a belt 
in the regions surrounding the whole of the 
north-eastern frontier of Africa, it is now pretty 
certain that the modern mammalian fauna of 
that continent w T as derived ; and it is noteworthy 
that the fauna of Samos, and still more that of 
the Siwalik, contains the greater number of 
forms most closely allied to those of Africa. In 
Pikermi and Samos no true elephants occur, but 
in the Siwalik elephants more or less closely 
allied to the existing African and Indian species 
are abundantly represented. 
Among the mammals discovered at Samos, a 
large number are identical with those occurring 
at Pikermi. - Thus, the well-known three-toed 
horse ( JHpparion ) is especially common in both 
localities. The rhinoceroses and mastodons like 
wise appear to have been, in most cases at least, 
specifically the same. Again, many of the ant- 
elopes found at Pikermi, some of which are 
allied to the African oryx and others to the 
koodoo, reappear at Samos. A large ruminant 
from Samos, as yet undescribed, but to which 
the provisional name Criotherium has been applied, 
appears, however, to be an antelope totally un- 
like any existing 
form. In this 
remarkable ani- 
mal the horns 
are set on the 
extreme vertex 
of the skull, as 
in the harte- 
beest, the gnu, 
and the ox, but 
are extremely 
short, tightly 
twisted, and 
bent right in 
front of thefore- 
head, in a manner totally unlike that found in any 
existing antelope. 
Perhaps, however, the most remarkable of the 
new mammals discovered at Samos is the large 
ruminant for which the name Samotherium has 
been proposed. Of the skull of this creature 
we are enabled, by the courtesy of Dr. Wood- 
ward, to give a figure. It will be seen from 
this figure that the general proportions and contour 
of the skull are very similar to those of the 
giraffe; and the molar teeth are practically 
indistinguishable from, those of the latter. The 
remarkable feature of this skull is, however, the 
presence of a pair of upright horn-cores, situated 
immediately over the eyes, and inseparably con- 
nected with the frontal bones, of which indeed 
as in the antelopes, they form mere projections 
This condition is very different from that ob 
Skull of a Samotherium. 
