FOSSIL VAItANIDAE AND MEGrALANID AE. 
427 
griseus sprang exactly from Eastern Europe or Western-Asia, cannot natu¬ 
rally offer a subject for discussion, as in this respect no data exist, the 
question being besides quite indifferent from the faunistical point of 
view. Thus in the course of expansion of Var anus , V. griseus would 
represent a species of epistatic character, differenciated at an earlier epoch. 
The expansion beginning in the West from Quercy and St. Alban-Isère - 
which parts have already yielded fossil remains — must have been directed 
uniformally eastwards, as mentioned before, and no reason justifies the 
surmise of an earlier North-Eastern, Southern and South-Eastern tendency - 
as would be the case if strictly considering the geographical situation of the 
localities where remains have been found —neither the climatic, 
geographical or biological conditions requiring 
so narrowly limited an extension in that direc¬ 
tion. Taking into account the biology of Varanus and lending due atten¬ 
tion to its present geographical distribution, it might 
be presumed that Varanus in the course of the Tertiary period, 
whilst tending eastwards, spread so to say over all European territory of 
those days. 
A slight digression must be here made in reference to the origin of 
the Tertiary and Quarterly Fauna of Hungary. Four years ago Prof. Dr. John 
Tuzson after due botanical investigation 1 came to the conclusion that 
the similarity existing between the Flora of the Hungarian «Puszta» and that 
of the plains of South-Bussia, might be explained by the fact of Hungary 
in conformity with South-Bussia obtaining this flora after the Pleistocene 
from South-Western Europe. This opinion was afterwards attacked by Dr. 
Méhely, who basing his arguments on his studies of the Sicistinae 2 3 writes as 
follows : «it has been stated with as great a certainty as is humanly possible 
that the migration of the animals inhabiting our p u s z t a’s 
did take place from East to West indeed and 
not in the contrary direction». This opinion is yet more 
closely developed by the author, who believes in his «convincing» proofs 
to the justness of his declaration, and remarks that «when botanists will 
be able to rely upon similar methodical phylogenetical studies, the origin 
of our puszta ’s flora will be lighted upon in the very same regions», and in 
1 J. Tuzson, Grundz. d. Entwicklungsgesch. Pflanzengeographie Ungarns, Math. 
Natui’W. Bur. a. Ungarn, Bd. XXX, Leipzig, 1913, p. 30 — 66 & geogr. map. (The Hun¬ 
garian issue appeared in 1912.) 
3 Translated from : Magyarorsz. csíkos egerei ; in ; M. Tuo. Akad. Math. Term. -tud. 
Közi., XXXII, Budapest, 1913, p. 41. (Appeared also with some modifications and 
omissions in German : Die Streifenmäuse (Sicistinæ) Europas, Ann. Mus. Nat. Hung. 
Vol. XI, Budapest, 1913.) 
