Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/111

] while others, such as Cervus perrieri and the variety C. issiodorensis (Figs. 12, 12a), are closely allied to the C. taivanus of eastern Asia, while others, again (Cervus etueriarum and C. pardinensis, Figs. 13, 14), can scarcely be distinguished from the axis or spotted deer of India. Some of them (Cervus tetraceros) are wholly unlike any living form of deer in the shape of their antlers (Fig. 15). These were the prey of bears and wolves and felines allied to the panther and lynx, as well as of the great sabre-toothed Machairodus, the most formidable of all the carnivora. At night the Pleiocene forests of central France echoed with the weird laughter of the hyæna, belonging to two extinct species, H. perrieri and H. arvernensis.

The mammalia inhabiting the Pleiocene forests of the Val d'Arno, and recently classified by Dr. Forsyth Major, are more closely allied to the fauna of Auvergne than to that of Montpellier. In them the Elephas meridionalis and Mastodon arvernensis, and the hippopotamus, lived side by side. We also meet with a bear (Ursus etruscus) which differs very slightly from that of Auvergne; the Machairodus, the fossil hyæna, and two deer of the oriental forms above mentioned, are common to both regions. Very possibly also the hog (Sus Strozzi) may be merely a local race of that of Auvergne. Besides these animals, however, common both to France and Italy, there are some peculiar to the latter possessed of very remarkable characters. An ox (Bos etruscus of Falconer) presents us with the first instance of polled cattle. A horse (Equus Stenonis),