Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/82

54 are survivals from the upper Eocene. Among the latter are the Xiphodon and Kainothere, the Anchithere and the Paloplothere, as well as the Opossum and carnivorous Hyænodon. The two animals most characteristic of this stage are the hog-like Hyopotamus, and the remarkable creature the Anthracotherium, possessing back teeth like the hog, but front teeth (premolars, canines, and incisors) as well adapted for piercing and dividing flesh as in any of the true carnivores. The living genera were represented by the following animals. Rhinoceroses of small size, some without horns, and tapirs, lived in the forests; there were squirrels and dormice, hedgehogs, shrews, musk-shrews, together with beasts of prey belonging to the genera Mustela and Viverra. There were also moles burrowing in the ground. There were no true hogs nor representatives of the family of elephants, and among a large and varied group of animals representing the deer and the antelope there were none bearing antlers or horns.

The most important fact to be remarked in the mammalia of Europe at this period is that the opossums were still lingering in the forests, and that the marsupial ancestry of the Carnivores still asserted itself in the singular combination of characters offered by the Hyænodon. Here we bid farewell to the European marsupials, and none of their characters have been observed in any placental mammal living in the Old World in any subsequent age.

We are indebted to Professor A. Milne-Edwards for