Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 28.djvu/521

1872.] cient elasticity of constitution to endure a considerable degree of cold. The second animal belonging to this section, the Spotted Hyæna, is now found only in South Africa, under tropical conditions; while the third, or the Hippopotamus, lives at the present time in Middle and Southern Africa. Formerly it inhabited the valley of the lower Nile; and a tooth in the British Museum, from Nubia, is as large as that of the fossil variety, H. major. In the Pleistocene period it extended over the whole of the regions north of the Mediterranean, from Sicily and Gibraltar as far as Kirkdale, in Yorkshire, and eastwards into the valley of the Rhine; and the Hyæna and Lion at least as far to the west as Hungary, and to the north as Königsberg. The evidence afforded by these three animals as to the climate of those portions of Europe which they inhabited in Pleistocene times, differs considerably in point of value, but, on the whole, points towards a temperate or comparatively hot condition; for, although the elasticity of constitution which we know to have been possessed by the Lion may also have been shared by the Hyæna, it is very improbable that so aquatic an animal as the Hippopotamus could have ranged from Southern Europe as far north as Yorkshire under any other than temperate conditions. It could hardly have endured a winter sufficiently severe to cover the rivers with a thick coating of ice, without having its habits entirely altered; and such an alteration of habit would certainly leave its mark in other modifications in the fossil remains than those minute differences which have been observed between them and the skeleton of the living Hippopotamus amphibius. The fourth species, or the African Elephant, ranged as far as Sicily, and, according to M. Lartet, as far in Spain as Madrid. The fifth, or the Striped Hyæna, so common now in North Africa, has, according to the same high authority, been discovered in Spain and, by M. de Serres, in the cave of Lunel Viel, in the south of France; and the Felis caffer of Desmarest, an African species, has been added, by Mr. Ayshford Sanford and the writer, to the British animals. The Serval and Felis pardina of Africa have been identified by Dr. Falconer and Prof. Busk among the remains from the caves of Gibraltar.

The second group consists of those which are now only to be met with in the colder regions of the northern hemisphere—the Glutton, the Reindeer, Musk-sheep, Pouched Marmot, Hamster, Alpine Hare, Lemming, Ibex, and the Chamois; and their testimony as to climate is diametrically opposed to that of the preceding eight animals. The Musk-sheep, now found only in the high latitudes of the North-American continent, on the desolate, treeless, barren grounds, and the Reindeer, which lives in the belt of forest and the great treeless plains which extend between the forest and the sea, ranged through North Germany, Britain, and France, as far south as the mountain-barriers of the Alps and Pyrenees. Their absence from the districts further to the south is due, most probably, to a difference in tempe-