Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 28.djvu/528

434 regions of the Don and Volga, in Southern Russia. The latter animal is especially abundant on the banks of the Soura river, in lat. 55° N., and long. 47° E., under a temperate continental climate, cold in winter but hot in summer. Dr. Pallas, in his travels, describes the country which it inhabits as covered by tulips, saffron, and the Star of Bethlehem, in spite of the unusual severity of the preceding winter; and although the Pouched Marmot (Spermophilus citillus) was in the neighbourhood, there were vineyards close by. The Porcupine, on the other hand, does not now roam as far north as the caves of Belgium, but is restricted to the warmer countries near the Mediterranean.

The Pleistocene Urus still lives in the larger domestic cattle, al- though the wild breed was exterminated in the middle ages; and the Bison at the present time lives under the protection of the Tzar, in Lithuania, after having spread throughout Europe from Scania southwards. The Pleistocene Horse is represented by the, mouse-coloured wild animal of Northern Asia; it was as abundant and as widely spread over the Pleistocene continent as the Urus and the Bison.

The presence of these animals in the Pleistocene fauna implies a climate not very severe, but in all probability resembling that of Southern Russia and Northern Asia, in which they now live.

The Panther, which has been found alike in Britain, France, and at Gibraltar, has at the present day a most extended range through Africa, from Barbary to the Cape of Good Hope, and throughout Persia into Siberia. In this latter country Dr. Gothilf Fischer describes it as living in the same districts in the Altai Mountains and in Soongaria as the Tiger. The Fox and Wolf are like instances of carnivores being able to endure great variations in temperature without being specifically modified. These three animals, therefore, can tell ins nothing as to the Pleistocene climate.

The extinct mammalia may be divided into three classes, which correspond with three out of the four into which the living Pleistocene species naturally fall. To the southern belong the two Maltese dwarf Elephants, as well as Elephas antiquus and E. meridionalis, Rhinoceros etruscus, H. megarhinus, R. hemitœchus, and Ursus arvernensis, which passed from their head quarters, in the districts bordering on the Mediterranean, as far north as Norfolk. The Mammoth and Woolly Rhinoceros constitute the second or northern division. Found throughout Northern Asia together, even on the shores of the great Arctic Sea, they ranged through Russia and the whole European area south of the Baltic and north of the Alps. The Mammoth even ventured as far south in Europe as the valley of the Tiber, and in America as far down as the lower basin of the Mississippi. From its presence, in association with the southern forms,