PLIOCENE PERIOD 
Here live and thrive the sturdy ancestors. 250 
Others as pigs of Andamans would seem : 
Whilst some may be the little parent stream 
Of pigmy hogs. Indeed throughout the east 
Is multiplying fast " the unclean beast." 
Primeval deer, as in Europa's clime 255 
Had lived and vanished in the Miocene time, 
Still live on here. Short are their tusks now grown, 
But antlers small as yet their foreheads crown. 
And deer are here that quainter looks possess, 
And are, as musk deer, tusked but antlerless. 260 
With these ancestral types, new forms are here 
That with to-day's Swamp deer congeneric are. 
Long pointed antlers can they proudly boast, 
Changed for the canine tusks, that now are lost. 
Forests of horns indeed are in the land, 265 
And no millenium here is near at hand. 
Antelope of various species meet our sight, 
Through wood, and plain, to mountain's giddy height. 
Forms like to those that in these Pliocene days 
Are in Europa here pursue their ways. 270 
Gazelles are here as there, in all their pride, 
And kindred tribes to Oryx close allied, 
Kudus and Elands. Yet more varied are 
The many forms that here range wide and far. 
