Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/87

] belong principally to living families, but do not present us with any living species. There is a parroquet more slender than that of the Allier, and large gallinaceous birds about the size of peacocks frequented the borders of the lakes. The shores of the sea in which the marine faluns of the Loire were deposited, were inhabited by cormorants, geese, herons, and pheasants.

The third well-marked invasion of Meiocene Europe by the mammalia is that represented by the remains found in Germany at Eppelsheim, in Hungary at Baltavar, in France at Mont Léberon, in Spain at Concud, and in Greece at Pikermi. Numerous antelopes and two closely allied species of gazelle spread in vast troops over the plains of Hungary, Spain, Southern France, and the shores of the Mediterranean. A large wild hog with small canines, and two sorts of rhinoceros, horned and hornless, a tapir, gigantic elephant-like creatures, the Deinotherium, and the Mastodon, roamed through the forests and bathed in the rivers, and fell a prey to the great sabre-toothed feline Machairodus. All these genera, it will be remembered, lived also in the forests of the mid Meiocene age in France, Switzerland, and Italy. Great herds of Hipparions, animals resembling small asses or quaggas, intermediate in structure between the Anchithere and the horse, wandered over the whole of Europe, the greater part of Asia and of North America. A small deer with bifurcating antlers, resembling the Muntjak of tropical Asia, ranged over France and Germany, while