Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 28.djvu/520

426 the Hippurite limestone near Palermo, in Sicily, show that the Mammoth, which ranged as far south as the valley of the Tiber, did not cross the straits of Messina into Sicily. In the Grotto di San Ciro and in the Grotto di Maccagnone, from which vast quantities of bones have been exported from time to time for use in sugar-refining, a fauna was discovered differing in most important respects from that which has been described. Although the Elephas antiquus and the Spotted Hyæna remind us of the like deposits in the caves of Gower or Kirkdale, they were associated with the African Elephant and a small extinct Hippopotamus (H. Pentlandi). The last-named animal has been discovered by Dr. Adams and Captain Spratt in the caves of Malta, along with a gigantic Dormouse (Myoxus melitensis) and two pigmy Elephants (E. melitensis). It has also been identified by Dr. Falconer in the island of Candia. There is also proof of its having lived on the mainland of Greece, since an upper true molar, discovered by Dr. Rolleston, F.R.S., in a Greek tomb near Megalopolis in 1871, certainly belongs to this species, and was most probably obtained from one of the many caves which traverse the limestone plateau of Greece.

We have now to consider the conditions under which such an extraordinary fauna as this lived in Europe during the Pleistocene times; and the inquiry will lead us into some very interesting problems relating to the ancient climate and geography. The Pleistocene mammalia may be divided into five well-marked groups:—the first embracing those which live now in hot countries; the second those which inhabit northern regions or the tops of lofty mountains, where the cold is severe; the third those which inhabit temperate regions; a fourth those which are found alike in cold and hot; and a fifth those which are extinct.

The group of Pleistocene animals now found only in southern climates consists of eight. At the present day the Lion is found, with but extremely slight variations, in the whole of Africa—with the exception of Egypt and the Cape Colony, from, which it has been driven by the hand of man. In Asia the maneless variety inhabits the valley of the Tigris and of the Euphrates and the districts bordering on the Persian Gulf; and in India the common form is met with, according to Mr. Blyth, in the province of Kattywar, in Guzerat. Although the animal is now found only in these hot regions, it is proved by the concurrent testimony of Aristotle, Pausanias, and Ælian to have inhabited the mountains of Thrace, in which the winter cold must have been severe. The animal, therefore, although from its present distribution better fitted for a tropical than a temperate climate, possessed suffi-