Alfred Russel Wallace

“ For a long succession of ages, various forms of monkeys, hyænas, lions, horses, hipparions, tapirs, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, elephants, mastodons, deer, and antelopes, together with almost all the forms now living, produced a rich and varied fauna such as we now see only in the open country of tropical Africa. During all this period we have no reason to believe that the climate or other physical conditions of Europe were more favourable to the existence of these animals than now. ”

“ We may even extend our comparison to Northern China, where remains of Hyæna, Tapir, Rhinoceros, Chalicotherium, and Elephas, have been recently found, closely resembling those from the Miocene or Pliocene deposits of Europe or India, and showing that the Palæarctic region had then the same great extent from west to east that it has now. Of about forty genera comprised in the Indian Miocene fauna, no less than twenty-seven inhabited Central and Western Europe during the same epoch. ”

“ The objects of most interest to the pure zoologist and to the geologist—those strange forms which are farthest removed from any now living—are of least interest to us, since we aim at tracing the local origin or birthplace of existing genera and families; and for this purpose animals whose affinities with living forms are altogether doubtful, are of no value whatever. ”

“ We are thus enabled to determine what portion of the existing races of animals in a country are descendants of its ancient fauna, and which are comparatively modern immigrants; and combining these movements of the forms of life with known or probable changes in the distribution of land and sea, we shall sometimes be able to trace approximately the long series of changes which have resulted in the actual state of things. ”

“ We not only find great felines, surpassing in size and destructive power the lions and leopards of Africa, with hyænas of a size and in a variety not to be equalled now, but also huge rhinoceroses and elephants, two forms of giraffes, and a host of antelopes, which, from the sample here obtained, were probably quite as numerous and varied as they now are in Africa. Joined with this abundance of antelopes we have the absence of deer, which probably indicates that the country was open and somewhat of a desert character, since there were deer in other parts of Europe at this epoch. ”

“ And besides all these living types we have a host of extinct forms,—ten or twelve genera allied to swine; nine genera of tapir-like animals; four of horses; nine of wolves; with many distinct forms of the long-extinct families of Anoplotheridæ, Xiphodontidæ, and the edentate Macrotheridæ. It is almost certain that during the Miocene period Europe was not only far richer than it is now in the higher forms of life, but not improbably richer than any part of the globe now is, not excepting tropical Africa and tropical Asia. ”

“ Although it may seem somewhat out of place to begin the systematic treatment of our subject with extinct rather than with living animals, it is necessary to do so in order that we may see the meaning and trace the causes of the existing distribution of animal forms. It is true, that the animals found fossil in a country are very generally allied to those which still inhabit it ”

“ In Europe, however, we meet with a totally different assemblage of animals from those that form the existing fauna. We find apes and monkeys, many large Felidæ, numerous civets and hyænas, tapirs, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, elephants, giraffes, and antelopes, such as now characterise the tropics of Africa and Asia. ”

“ The degree of our knowledge of the Palæontology of various parts of the world is so unequal, that it will not be advisable to treat the subject under each of our six regions. Yet some subdivision must be made, and it seems best to consider separately the extinct animals of the Old and of the New Worlds. ”

“ There are three large species of Rhinoceros, as well as a species of the extinct genus Leptodon of smaller size. Remains of a very large wild boar (Sus) were found. Very interesting is the occurrence of a species of giraffe (Camelopardalis) as tall as the African species but more slender; and also an extinct genus Helladotherium, not quite so tall as the giraffe but much more robust, and showing some approach to the Antilopidæ in its dentition. Antelopes were abundant, ranging from the size of the gazelle to that of the largest living species. ”

“ These cave-remains are probably all subsequent to the Glacial epoch, and they all come within the period of man's occupation of the country. Yet we find clear proofs of two distinct kinds of change in the forms of animal life. First we have a change clearly traceable to a difference of climate. We find such arctic forms as the rein-deer, the musk-sheep, the glutton, and the lemming, with the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros of the Siberian ice-cliffs, inhabiting this country and even the south of France. This is held to be good proof that a sub-arctic climate prevailed over all Central Europe ”

“ But together with this change we have another that seems at first sight to be in an exactly opposite direction. We meet with numerous animals which now only inhabit Africa, or South Europe, or the warmer parts of Asia. Such are, large felines—some closely related to the lion (Felis spelæa) , others of altogether extinct type (Machairodus) and forming the extreme development of the feline race;—hyænas; horses of two or more species; and a hippopotamus. If we go a little further back, to the remains furnished by the gravels and brick-earths, we still find the same association of forms. ”

“ We now come to an extraordinary group of extinct animals, probably forming a new family intermediate between the antelope and the giraffe. The Sivatherium was an enormous four-horned ruminant, larger than a rhinoceros. It had a short trunk like a tapir, the lower horns on the forehead were simple, the upper pair palmated. The Bramatherium, an allied form from Perim Island, showed somewhat more affinity for the giraffe.
Proboscidea.—No less than seven species of elephants and four of mastodons ranged over India, their remains being found in all the deposits from the Siwalik Hills to Burmah. ”

“ Primates.—We here first meet with evidence of the existence of monkeys in Central Europe. Species of Macacus have left remains not only in the Newer Pliocene of the Val d'Arno in Italy, but in beds of the same age at Grays in Essex; while Semnopithecus and Cercopithecus, genera now confined to the Oriental and Ethiopian regions respectively, have been found in the Pliocene deposits of the South of France and Italy. ”

“ Such facts as the occurrence in Europe during this period of hippopotami, tapirs, giraffes, Tragulidæ, Edentata, and Marsupials—will assist us in solving many of the problems we shall meet with in reviewing the actual distribution of living forms of those groups. Still more light will, however, be thrown on the subject by the fossil forms of the American continent, which we will now proceed to examine. ”

“ The principal genera are Cricetodon, allied to the hamsters, numerous in both the Upper and Lower Miocene period of France; Myoxus (the dormice) in France, and an allied genus, Brachymys, in Germany. The beavers were represented by the still living genus Castor, and the extinct Steneofiber in France. The squirrels by the existing Sciurus and Spermophilus; and by extinct forms, Lithomys and Aulacodon, in Germany, the latter resembling the African genus Aulacodes. The hares, by Lagomys and an extinct form Titanomys. ”