pera TD

: i TO THE

FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS
Bae? IN THE DEPARTMENT OF
GEOLOGY AND PALMONTOLOGY
IN THE

~ BRITISH MUSEUM (NATURAL HISTORY),

CROMWELL ROAD, LONDON, 8.W.

WITH 6 PLATES AND 88 TEXT-FIGURES.

HIGHTH EDITION.

4097
__ _ LONDON: 4
PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES. _

 

 

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1904. for ON
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PRICE SIXPENCE.
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CORNELL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

 

 

 

 
Cornell woos Library
QE 716.B86G9 1904

fii

mammals and birds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
B.M. GUIDE FOSS. MAMM. AND BIRDS.

PLATE I.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PLAN OF THE GALLERIES OF

ConTrENTS OF WALL-CASES AND PrmR-CASKS.

1, 2. Remains from Caverns and Bone-beds. 3-5. Primates and Carnivora. 6-22. Unenlata. 23-25,
Ratite Birds. 26. Edentata. 27. Marsupialia, 28. Proboscidean Ungulata. 29. Sirenia and

Proboscidean Ungulata. 30-43. Proboscidean Ungulata.

CONTENTS OF TABLE-CASES,

1. Implements and Human Remains. la. Crag Mammals. 2, 3, Carnivora. 2a. Creodouta, Tisee-
tivora, and Chiroptera, 4-11. Ungulata. 12, 12a, 13, 13a. Birds. 14, Ida, 15. Marsupialia,
14b, 15a. Kdentata. 16, Rodentia. 17-21. Proboscidean Ungulata.

 

POSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

SpectaL Cases AND STANDS.

A. Pikermi Bone-bed. B, Mastodon americanus. ©. Dinotherium giganteum. D, Skeleton of Indian

Klephant, 18, Stuffed Indian Hlephant. F,G. Skulls of Indian Elephant. H. Tusks of Elephants.
1. Skull of African Mlephant. J. Wlephas (Stegodon) ganesa. K. Skull of Mammoth. L. Titano-
therium elatum. M. Samotheriwm boissieri. N. Sivatherium giganteum. O. Hlephas namadicus.
DP. Mlephas hysudricus. Q. Male Irish Deer. R. Female Irish Deer. S. Arsinoitheriwm zitteli.
T. Tovodon platensis. U. Dinoceras mirabile. V. Sirenia. W. Elephas hysudricus. X. Megathe-
roan american. Y. Mylodon robustus. Z. Glyptodon clavipes. AA. Phororhachos longissimus.
BB. Dodo. CC. Aptornis defossor, DD. Cnemiornis calcitrans. EE. Harpagornis moorei.
IF. Great Auk. GG, Pachyornis  elephantopus. HH. Dinornithide. II. Dinornithidee.
JJ. Aepyornithide. KK. Skeleton of Ostrich,
[To face Title-page.
A GUIDE

TO THE

FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS

IN THE DEPARTMENT OF

GEOLOGY AND PALHONTOLOGY

IN THE

BRITISH MUSEUM (NATURAL HISTORY),

CROMWELL ROAD, LONDON, 8.W.

WITH 6 PLATES AND 88 TEXT-FIGURES.

EIGHTH EDITION.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES.
1904.

PRICE SIXPENCE.
(All rights reserved.)

w
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND GREAT WINDMILL STREET, W.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Se

PAGE
Table of Contents . ‘ : ‘ ‘ 3 - ; . iii
List of Plates ¢ 3 : : y ‘ A ; v
List of Illustrations in Text ‘i : s F F . vii
Preface ‘ & é f . : 5 3 Z a xi
Introduction z ‘ ¢ 3 " “ ‘ . xiii
Table of Stratified Rocks ‘ 3 : 3 . (Opposite p. xvi)

Cuass I.—MAMMALIA.

BonE-BEDS

CAVERNS .

MammMats oF Piriarneunn Howore

Man ASSOCIATED WITH PLEISTOCENE Manipans
BritisH Priocene Mamas

2
3
3
6
8
Sub-class I.— EuTHERIA 9
Order I.—Primates 9
Sub-order 1.—ANTHROPOIDEA (Man and Monkeys) 9
Sub-order 2.—Lemvromweza (Lemurs) . \ 10

Order II.—Carntvora (Flesh-eating animals) 5 12
Sub-order 1.—Carnivora Vera (Cats, Dogs, Bears, &e.) 12

55 2.—CreEoponta (Primitive Flesh-eaters) 16
3.—Pinnipepia (Seals, Walrus, &c.) 17

Order III. __InsECTIVORA (Moles, Shrews, ies 17

», IV.—Catroprera (Bats) 18
V.—Uneunata (Hoofed animals) . 18

” Sub-order 1—PERISSODACTYLA (Odd- -toed) 18

7 2.—AncyLopopa (Curve-toed) . 5 . 27

5s 3.—ARTIODACTYLA (Even-toed) . ; . 228

<i 4.—AmBLypopa (Stumpy-toed) . 5 . 44

” 5.—Hyracoipga (Hyrag-like) . . . 48

a 6.—ConpyLarTHRa (Primitive) . F . 48

i 7.—TypoTHERIA (South American) ‘ . 48

a5 8.—Toxopont1a (South American) : . 48

55 9.—LirorTerna (South American) 3 . 48

»  10.—ProposcipEa (Elephants) . ‘ . 52

Order VI.—Ropentia (Gnawing animals) : ; . 66
» _VII.—Srrenia (Sea-cows) , 3 2 i . 67
», WIII.—Crracza (Whales) i 3 . 69
“ IX.—Epenrara (Sloths, Armadillos, &e.) : . 771
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Sub-class II.—Mrtaruprima .
Order X.—Marsuprania (Pouched animals)
Sub-class III.—PrororHeria . ;
Order XI.—Mv.LtTitUBERCULATA 2
» XII.—Monorremata (Egg-laying maminals)

Cuass II.—AVHS (Birds).

Order I.—Carinat& (With keeled breast-bone)
»  I1.—Ratir# (With raft-shaped breast-bone)
»  LIII.—Saurvur& (With lizard-like tail)

Index .

PAGE

77
81
81
85

86

93
96
IT.

III.
IV.

LIST OF PLATES.

rj

. Plan of the Galleries ‘ . Frontispiece.

Block of Lower Pliocene Bene Ba from Pikermi, Greece.
(Case A) To face page 2
Opposite side of the same specimen . . To face page 3

Skin of an extinct Ground-sloth, Grypotheriwm listai, from
a cavern in Patagonia . 2 : To face page 74

. Skeleton of the Gigantic Moa Dinca maximus), from
New Zealand. (Case GG) To facepage 92

. Slab of Lithographic Stone from Bavaria with remains of a

Lizard-tailed Bird (Archzopteryx macrura).

(Table-case 13) To face page 94
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT.

a me
FIG. PAGE

1. Block of Flint from Crayford, Kent, broken by Paleolithic
Man in making an Implement; also the unfinished

Implement made from the same 7
2. Palatal view of left upper teeth of Adapis magna, from

Upper Eocene, Hordwell . 11
3. Model of skull and mandible of Megaladapis insignis, from

a Cavern in Madagascar : 11
4, Head of the ‘‘ Sabre-toothed Tiger ’’ (Machzrodus neogzus),

from the Pampa Formation of Buenos Aires. (After

W. D. Matthew) . 13
5. Skull and mandible of the Cave-bear ‘(Ursus spelzus),

from a Pleistocene Cavern Deposit in Bavaria . +14
6. Molar tooth of Hyznarctos, from the Red Crag of Suffolk . 15
7. Right ramus of mandible of Cephalogale brevirostris, from

the Oligocene Phosphorites of France . 15
8. Skeleton of Hyznodon crwentus, Leidy, from the Oligocene

of Dakota, U.S.A. (After W. B, Scott) . 4 16
9. Skeleton of fore foot of Perissodactyl or Uneven-toed

Ungulata (Tapir, Rhinoceros, and Horse) ‘ 19

10. Skull and mandible of the Slender-nosed Rhinoceros
(Rhinoceros leptorhinus), from the Pleistocene of Ilford,

Essex . 20
11. Skull and mandible of Aceratheriwm megalodus, from the

Upper Miocene of Colorado, U.S.A. (After Cope) . 21
12. Skeleton of Titanotherium robustum, from the Oligocene

of Dakota, U.S.A. 23

13. Diagram showing the gradual loss of toes in the feet and
increase of Ray in the teeth of the Horse-like
Ungulata . 24

14. Left upper teeth in maxilla of Palzotherium crasswm,
from the Upper Eocene Gypsum of Montmartre, Paris.

(After Gaudry) 25
15. Restoration of the skeleton and outline of the body of

Palzotherium magnum. (After Cuvier) 26
16. Third right upper true molar tooth of Chalicotherium

sinense, from the Pliocene of China 7 Q27
17. Skeleton of fore foot of Artiodactyl or Even- toed Ungulata

(Pig, Deer, and Camel) . 28

18. Skull, symphysis of mandible, and tooth of Hippopotamus
sivalensia, from the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills,
India . i , 2 3 ; : ; : . 80
Vill LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT.

FIG,
19.

20.
21.
22.
23.
24,
25.
26.
27.

28.

29.
30.
31.
32.

33.
34,

35.

36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42,

43.
44,

Third right lower true molar tooth of Sus cristatus, a living
Indian pig .

Third right upper true molar tooth of Hyopotamus bovinus,
from the Oligocene Hempstead Beds, Isle of Wight 3

Skeleton of Hyopotamus brachyrhynchus, from the Oligo-
cene of Dakota, U.S.A. (After W. B. Scott) .

Right upper teeth of Anoplotheriwm cayluxense, from the
Oligocene Phosphorites of France .

Right upper teeth of immature Anoplotherium secundarium,
from the Upper Eocene of Débruge, France .

Skull of Cznotherium filholi, from the Oligocene Phospho-
rites of France.

Reduced side-view of skull of existing Chevrotain (Tragulus
javanicus), from the Malayan region

Mandible and teeth of Dichodon cuspidatus, from the Upper
Eocene of Hordwell, Hampshire

Skull and mandible of Samotherium boissieré, from the
Lower Pliocene of the Isle of Samos.

Skull of Sivatherium gigantewm, from the Lower Pliocene
of the Siwalik Hills, India .

Skeleton of the Irish Deer, Cervus (Megaceros) giganteus,
from shell-marl beneath the peat, Ireland.

Antler of Red Deer (Cervus elaphus), one of a pair dredged
from the River Boyne at Drogheda, Ireland

Skull and antlers of Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), from
Bilney Moor, East Dereham, Norfolk. (After Owen)

Antlers of fifth and sixth years of “Cervus” tetraceros,
from the Upper Pliocene of Peyrolles, France. ‘

Antlers of various Deer (Cervide)

Skull of Bos Penge, from the Pleistocene of ‘Athol,
Perthshire .

Outline of upper view of skull of "Coryphodon hamatus,
to show the small size of the brain, with drawings
of feet; from the Lower Eocene of Wyoming, U.S.A.
(After Marsh) “

Left upper and lower teeth of Coryphodon hamatus, from
the Lower Eocene of Wyoming, U.S.A. (After Marsh) .
Skeleton of Tinoceras ingens, from the Middle Eocene of

Wyoming, U.S.A. (After Marsh) . ,

Skull and mandible of Arsinoitherium zitteli, from the Upper
Eocene of the Fayum, Egypt ‘

Skeleton of Phenacodus primzvus, from the Lower Eocene
of Wyoming, U.S.A. (After Cope)

Skeleton of Phenacodus primzvus, as now mounted in the
American Museum of Natural History

Skeleton of Toxodon platensis, from the Pampa Formation
of Buenos Aires, Argentine Republic

Skeleton of Mammoth (Elephas primigenius), with remains
of dried skin on head and feet, from frozen earth near the
mouth of the River Lena, Siberia z

View of grinding surface of left last upper molar of Mammoth,
dredged off the Dogger Bank, North Sea ;

Mandible of Mammoth, dredged off the Dogger Bank .

PAGE

30
31
32
33
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
40

41
42

43

45
45
46
47
49
50
51

53

55
55
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT. ix

FIG.

45. View of grinding surface of right second lower molar of
Elephas antiquus, from the Pleistocene of Grays, Essex. 56
46. View of grinding surface of upper molar of Hlephas meridio-
nalis, from the Upper Pliocene of Tuscany. . 57
47. Vertical longitudinal section of lower molar of Mastodon . 58
48. Vertical longitudinal section of molar of Blephas (Stegodon)
insignis, from the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills,

PAGE

India , 58
49. Vertical longitudinal section of molar of Elephas planifrons,

from the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills . ; 58
50. View of grinding surface of lower molar of Mastodon siva-

lensis, from the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills . 59
51. View of grinding surface of upper molar of Elephas (Stegodon)

chiftt, from the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills . 59

52. View of part of grinding surface of upper molar of Hlephas
planifrons, from the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills. 59
58. Lower molar of Mastodon americanus, from the Pleistocene

of North America 60
54, Skeleton of Mastodon americanus, ‘from. the Pleistocene,

Missouri, U.S.A. 61
55. Skeleton of Tetrabelodon angustidens, from the Middle

- Miocene of Sansan, France . 62
56. Left upper milk-molars of Tetrabelodon longirostris, from

the Lower Pliocene of Eppelsheim, Hesse-Darmstadt . 62
57. Skull and mandible of Dinotheritum gigantewm, from the

Lower Pliocene of Eppelsheim .. 63
58. Left upper teeth of Dinotherium gigantewm, from the Lower

Pliocene of Eppelsheim 3 63
59. Skull and mandible of Hlephas (Stegodon) ganesa, from the

Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills, India . 64

60. Skull and mandible of Tetrabelodon angustidens, from the
Middle Miocene of Sansan, France. (After C. W.Andrews) 64
61. Skull and mandible of Paleomastodon beadnell, from the
Upper Eocene of the Fayum, Egypt. (After C. W. Andrews) 65
62. Skull and mandible of Merithervwm lyonsi, from the Middle

Eocene of the Fayum, Egypt. (After C. W. Andrews) . 65
68. Teeth of Beaver (Castor fiber), from the Fens of Cambridge- a
shire . 7
64, Skeleton of Steller’s Sea-cow ' (Rhytina gigas), from the
Pleistocene of Bering Island . 68
65. Skeleton of Halkthervum schinat, from the Oligocene of
Hesse-Darmstadt . 69
66. Tympanic bone of Whalebone-Whale (Balena primigenia),
from the Red Crag of Suffolk : 70
67. Skull and upper molar tooth of Zeuglodon cetoides, from
the Eocene of Alabama, U.S.A... 70
68. Skeleton of Scelidotheriwm leptocephalum, from the Pampa
Formation of Buenos Aires, Argentine Republic . « Ae
69. Lower jaw of Megathertwm americanum, from the Pampa
Formation of Buenos Aires . 73

70. Skeleton of Glyptodon rae. from the Pampa Formation
of Buenos Aires . ‘ 75
x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT.

FIG. PAGE

71. Portion of tail-sheath of Hoplophorus, from the Pampa
Formation of Buenos Aires .

72. Skull and mandible of Diprotodon australis, from the Pleisto-

cene of Queensland : 78
73. Skull and mandible of Thylacoleo carnifex, from the Pleisto-

cene of Australia . 79
74. Lower jaw and teeth of Triconodon mordaz, from the

Purbeck Beds of Swanage. 80
75. Part of lower jaw and teeth of Spalacotheriwm tricuspidens,

from the Purbeck Beds of Swanage : 80
76. Lower jaw and teeth of Phascolotherium bucklandi, from

the Stonesfield Slate of Oxfordshire : 81

77. Lower jaws of American Jurassic Mammals. (After Marsh)
78. Upper molar tooth of Neoplagiaulaz eocenus, fromthe Lower 82

Eocene of Rheims, France . 83
79. Lower jaw and teeth of Plagiaulax becklesi, from the
Purbeck Beds of Swanage . 83
80. Jaws and teeth of Multituberculata, from the Jurassic of
Wyoming, U.S.A. (After Marsh) . 84
81. Skull of Tritylodon longzvus, from the Karoo Formation of
South Africa ‘ 85
82. Lower molar teeth of the existing Australian Monotreme,
Ornithorhynchus. (After C. Stewart) . 85
83. Skull and mandible of Odontopteryx toliapica, from the
London Clay of Sheppey ‘ 87
84. Skeleton of Hesperornis regalis, from the Cretaceous of
Kansas, U.S.A. (After Marsh) 88
85. Skeleton of Ichthyornis victor, from the Cretaceous of
Kansas, U.S.A. (After Marsh) . 89
86. Restored skull and mandible of Phororhachos longissimus,
from the Santa Cruz Formation of Patagonia . ; 90
87. Diagrammatic sketch of the fossil Archzopteryx macrura,
from the Lithographic Stone of Bavaria 94

88. Head of Archewopteryx stemenst, from the Lithographic
Stone of Bavaria. (After Dames) . ‘ ‘ 95
PREFACE.

 

SincE the last edition of the “Guide to Fossil Mammals
and Birds” was published in 1896, the additions to the
collection have been so numerous, and knowledge has
advanced so much, that the book has now been entirely
re-written by Dr. Arthur Smith Woodward, the Keeper of
Geology. The present issue, however, retains all the original
features of the Guide, and is not in any sense a systematic
treatise. Its arrangement is determined by that of the cases
and specimens, and it sometimes refers to trivial details
which are of interest solely to visitors actually in the
” Galleries.

As fossils can only be understood by those who have
some acquaintance with the existing world of life, this
Guide assumes on the part of the reader at least as much
elementary knowledge as is contained in the Guides to the
Department of Zoology.

Many of the specimens bear small discs of green or red
paper. Those marked with green discs are either “type-
specimens,” or have been described and illustrated in some
scientific work, to which a reference is given on the label.
Those marked with red discs have been merely noticed or
briefly described in print.

E, RAY LANKESTER,

Director.
May, 1904.
INTRODUCTION.

OBJECTS much resembling fishes, shells, plants, and other
remains of living things, have been noticed in rocks from
time immemorial. So long ago as the fifth century, B.c., the
philosopher Pythagoras seems to have observed sea-shells
buried in the earth far away from the shores of the seas
then existing; while Xenophanes of Colophon recorded the
discovery of fishes and other animals embedded in the hard
rock of the quarries near Syracuse. Herodotus afterwards
referred to sea-shells from the stone quarries in the hills
of Egypt and the Libyan desert. Other contemporary
philosophers and writers made similar observations, and
most of them appear to have reached the very natural
conclusion, that these petrified relics were originally buried
in the bed of the sea, which had hardened and become dry
land through the retreat of the waters.

At this early period in the study of natural philosophy,
however, it was a common belief that animals could originate
from the mud or slime of lakes and rivers, There was
therefore another reasonable explanation of their occurrence
as petrifactions in stone which seemed simpler, because it
did not involve any startling theories as to great changes in
the relations of land and sea. If certain animals could be
generated in mud, it appeared quite probable that they should
sometimes remain concealed in their native element without
reaching the surface, and in that case they would become
hardened into stone itself. As Theophrastus remarked
concerning petrified fishes, they might have “ either developed
from fresh spawn left behind in the earth, or gone astray
from rivers or the sea into cavities of the earth, where they
had become petrified.” These bodies thus appeared to be
mere curiosities, and they were treated as such by Aristotle,
xiv INTRODUCTION.

who was content to regard them as produced by some
plastic force in the rock which he could not explain.

The authoritative opinion of Aristotle was almost
universally accepted by the few writers who considered the
subject before the revival of learning towards the beginning
of the sixteenth century. By this time the numerous shells,
teeth, and fish-remains met with in the stone quarries of
Italy had induced several observers in that country to
reconsider the question of their true nature. Similar
discoveries in other European countries were also being
discussed in their bearing on the same problem. The objects
found in stone were now closely compared with the shells,
teeth, and skeletons of the animals most nearly resembling
them which still lived in the Mediterranean sea. The
plant-remains were also studied deeply in connection with
the leaves of the known existing vegetation. The result was
that, although many observers still adhered to the long-
prevalent belief, some of the most philosophical minds were
compelled by strict reasoning to admit that the /fossilia
(Latin, “things dug up”), or fossils, as they were now
commonly termed, were really the remains of the once-living
animals and plants which they appeared to represent.
Leonardo da Vinci, the well known painter, was one of the
first to support this opinion with unanswerable arguments ;
while Steno, a Professor in the University of Padua, more
than a century later, made it impossible any longer to doubt
his demonstration of the facts. Steno’s collection was
acquired by the English Gresham Professor, John Woodward,
who bequeathed it to the University of Cambridge, where it
is still preserved in the Woodwardian Museum.

The true nature of fossils was thus settled by the
beginning of the eighteenth century, and the next problem
was to explain how the remains of sea-animals had been
buried in the rocks far inland and at great heights among
hills and mountains. For at least sixty years it was the
prevailing opinion that all the phenomena could be accounted
for by the Deluge recorded in the Pentateuch. There were,
however, many difficulties in accepting this explanation,
and the discussions at the time led to a most detailed study
of the manner in which the fossils were grouped and
distributed in the different kinds of rock. Observations
accumulated at a remarkable rate, until, by the end of the
eighteenth century, it became quite clear that the fossilised
animals and plants could not have lived all together at one
INTRODUCTION. XV

time, but belonged to many different periods of the earth’s
history. Their destruction and burial, therefore, could not
be ascribed to any single great catastrophe. It was demon-
strated that during past ages the distribution of land and
sea, mountains and plains, had frequently changed—that, in
fact, rain, rivers, waves, currents, volcanoes, and phenomena
like earthquakes, were continually altering the earth’s
surface, even under the eyes of man himself. The fossils
were proved in most cases to be buried in displaced portions
of sea-bottom, and in the mud of dried-up lakes; and it was
realised that the relative ages of these deposits could be
determined by the order in which they lay one upon
another. Thus arose the true “science of the earth,’ which
was named Geology by De Luc in 1778.

An English civil engineer, William Smith (1769-1839),
was perhaps the first to realise fully the possibilities of this
new branch of learning. His profession necessitated much
travel through the country, and his interest in the distri-
bution of fossils in the different kinds of rock led him to
make a large collection, which was acquired by the British
Museum in 1816, and is now exhibited in Gallery No. 11
of the Department of Geology. His published maps and
writings prove that the various features of the landscape,
in districts where fossils occur, are naturally carved out of
layers of rock, which are simply old sea-beds or lake-beds
piled one upon another, the oldest at the bottom, the newest
at the top, each containing its own definite and invariable
set of fossils. They also show that in most cases when these
old sediments were raised into dry land, they were tilted in
various ways from their originally horizontal position; so
that it is often possible in a short walk to pass over the cut
edges of many successive layers, perhaps hundreds of feet in
thickness, representing immense periods of time.

While Smith and others were busily engaged in collecting
fossils and observing their distribution, Blumenbach, Cuvier,
Lamarck, Brongniart, and other naturalists were occupied
with a detailed study of the fossils themselves. They soon
demonstrated that, while most of these petrified remains
could be interpreted by comparing them with the life of the
present world, a large proportion represented animals and
plants no longer existing. They also observed that the
older the fossils, the more strikingly different they were
from any animals and plants now living. It therefore
became evident that fossils afforded a means of discovering
xvi INTRODUCTION.

the past history of life on the earth—of determining the
gradual stages by which our present animals and plants
have become what they are, and have assumed their present
geographical distribution. Thus was attained the “science
of ancient life,” which was named Paleontology by
H. D. de Blainville and Fischer von Waldheim in 1834.

The Department of Geology in the British Museum
chiefly deals with fossils from the latter point of view, and
attempts to explain the main features in the life of the
Present by reference to that of the Past.

Note to the Geological Time-scale-—The names in the three columns
to the left are applied only to periods of time. The names in the two
columns on the right are those of actual strata deposited during the time-
periods opposite which they are placed. These strata or rock-groups are
only a few out of the many that might have been mentioned, and it must
not be inferred that those in the European column are the precise
equivalents of those next them in the British column. It is just because
rock-formations in different parts of the world so rarely are equivalent,
that a time-scale is needed to which each can be referred. The absolute
duration of the divisions on the time-scale is a matter of pure conjecture;
but their relative duration can be roughly estimated from the thickness
of the rocks. An attempt is made to represent this relative duration by
the diagram to the right, which is based on the thickness of the rocks in

N.W. Europe.
(To be inset by this edge opposite p. xvi.)

A GEOLOGICAL TIME-SCALE, WITH EXAMPLES OF FOSSILIFEROUS ROCKS. RELATIVE LENGTHS OF EPOCHS.

 

  
 
  

    

 

 

    
 
    

  
  

      
   
    
     
 
 

 

  
    
 

 

  
    
 

 

  
    
 

 

  
    

 

 

 

ERAS. Epocus. AGES. BRITISH. EUROPEAN. | See ae aeee TERTIARY. _1,600 ft.
_—— CRETACEOUS. 2,500 ft.
HOLOCENE . .| PRESENT DAY . Blown sand, alluvium, beaches, hia | |
HISTORIC, tufa, peat, shell-beds, é&c., as | | |
NEOLITHIC. now forming. | | | | JURASSIC, 5000 ft.
PLEISTOCENE .| PALZOLITHIC . Alluvium, &c., as above ; valley-gravels, | | ls
si GLACIAL .. . ae oee ean es Dould el clays: brick-earth. | w
——_—_—__—_—______+} Norfo. orest-bed, Wexford Gravels. | | . TR » a
& | PLIOCENE . . SICILIAN. . | fy} dd ERPS SOE,
= STIAN . : orwich and Red Crags. |
a PLAISANCIAN | | Coralline Crag; Lenham-beds. .  . Pikermi-beds. ; | | a PERMIAN. 1,500 ft.
SI —————_—_———___—_———_ |
& | MIOCENE. . . | TORTONIAN. |
5 HELVETIAN foo ie ms Ké i ee molasse. | on
URDIGALIAN . aa =% ae ne lobigerina Lst., Malta. | |
= AQUITANIAN . | ‘e ia ‘a - Beauce Limestone. fee He Le CARBONIFEROUS.
S | ourcoceNe . .|RUPELIAN. .. | Hamstead. | | 12,000 ft,
kat TONGRIAN . . . | Bembridge : f : z . Sables d’Etampes. |
3 PRIABONIAN . . | Osborne and Headon 5 x ‘ . Phosphorites of Quercy. -
Feet aca uae s
EOCENE . . ./ BARTONIAN . .. | Barton and Bagshot ‘ 3 ms . Gypsum of Montmartre. |
LUTETIAN . . . | Bracklesham_  . ° ‘i 5 c . Calcaire grossier. | | =
LONDINIAN.. .| LondonClay . 5 ‘ z : . Sables de Cuise. | | Fase DEVONIAN, 4000 ft.
THANETIAN . . | Thanet Sands . é 2 . 5 . Sables de Bracheux.
MONTIAN . .. he site oi £3 Poudingue de Ciply. mA
CRETACEOUS DANIAN. . | Chalk in Norfolk and Charing detritus . Maestricht Chalk. | SILURIAN,
&\| SENONIAN . . . | UpperChalk . * . Gosau-beds. 24
Be TURONIAN. . . | Middle Chalk . : ¥ : . Planer-Mergel. ; | | ae 7000 ft.
5|| CENOMANIAN _. | Lower Chalk; Chalk marl. - - Tourtia. }
- ALBIAN . . .. .| Upper Greensand ; Red Chalk ; Gault.
os & APTIAN . . . . | LowerGreensand . . Schratten-Kalk. 2
a 2 URGONIAN. .. . | Speeton Clay; Tealby Beds be Wealden ee Limestone. <
a St] NEOCOMIAN . . | Spilsby; Purbeck Valangian, Berriasian. _
x, sa cialis vinetaedanide ies ocaeplacaan +
° JURASSIC. PORTLANDIAN .. | Portland Stone é 5 ‘ - . Tithonic. | By
B KIMMERIDGIAN . | Kimmeridge Clay . . Lithographic Stone. | 2 ORDOVICIAN.
nm Q]}| CORALLIAN. . . | Corallian Limestone ; Ampthill Clay . Sequanian. | ma
5 &}]| OXFORDIAN . . | Oxford Clay. j . Brauner Jura ¢. | 15,000 ft.
S\| CALLOVIAN. . . | Kellaways Rock Mi » & ls
S S|} BATHONIAN . . | Cornbrash ; Forest Marble ; Great Oolite i ae Os ia |
g BAJOCIAN . . . | Inferior Oolite, Yorkshire Estuarine : i sae Aa a |
° AALENIAN. .. . | Midford and Northampton Sands . : ¥ » af. | |
B 2 (| TOARCIAN .._. | Bridport Sands, Upper Lias c 5 | io
o 2 PLIENSBACHIAN Marlstone, Middle Lias . : 2 7 | schwanzer Jura. I | g |
ss q SINEMURIAN . . | Lower Lias Mf aaa -s ee
TRIASSIC . .| RHAETIAN. . . | White Lias; Tea-green Marls . ‘ . Késsener Schichten. | 2
KEUPERIAN . . | Waterstones, Elgin Sandstone Z . Keuper and Raibl Beds. | Be
CONCHYLIAN . . | Pebble Beds, Variegated Sandstone . . Muschelkalk, Bunter. ae a CAMBRIAN,
PERMIAN . .|PUNJABIAN . .| Red Marls & Sandstones, Magnesian Zechstein. | | | 8 12,000 ft.
ARTINSKIAN Limestone ; Penrith Beds. Rothliegende. be
— Bohemian gas-coal. | | th Vai
CARBONI- OURALIAN . . . | Coal Measures. a\|a | B=
Hi FEROUS, MOSCOVIAN . . | Millstone Grit; Yoredale Beds. Ss a. |e
fa, BERNICIAN. . . | Mountain Limestone; Culm. é BS
feng ge Te = es
3 DEVONIAN . .| CONDRUSIAN . . | Upper Devonian Psaminites du Condroz. ||, 2F
4 EIFELIAN . . . | Middle ig t Old Red Sandstone . Jeatccoa Limestone. | | 2,6
Ay COBLENTIAN . . | Lower 33 Hunsriick Slates. | | ot Ze
a ————— | | | 3g
° | SILURIAN . .|LUDLOVIAN . . | Downton and Ludlow Series . a . Gotland Limestone. | | | os 2
zg WENLOCKIAN _. | Wenlock and Woolhope Series. . . Cyrtograptus Shales. fh sos
S VALENTIAN . . | Tarannon and Llandovery Series. . Pentamerus Limestone. | ra ogee PRECAMBRIAN
3 jee | mS ‘
& ORDOVICIAN .| CARADOCIAN . . | Bala, Chirbury and Caradoc Series . . Grés de May. | S 2 is a
4 LLANDEILIAN. . | Llandeilo and Middleton Series. a ass Extent unknown.
a ARENIGIAN . .| Arenig, Shelve, and Skiddaw . A . Orthoceras Limestone. = a3
"| Tremadoc and ‘Shineton Beds . A . Ceratopyge Limestone. ho 3S 3 2
CAMBRIAN . .| OLENIDIAN. . . | Lingula Flags . % ‘ : . Olenus Shales. | © 283
PARADOXIDIAN . | Menevian Series . Andrarum Limestone. E Hag
OLENELLIAN . . | Harlech, Caerfai, and Hartshill Series - Eophyton Sandstone. i Be
PRECAMBRIAN ee eee A large series of rocks of which only the uppermost have yielded fossils,
and those for the most part obscure, as the worm-burrows in the Longmynd.

 

 

 
A GUIDE

TO THE

FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

GALLERIES Nos. 1, 2—FOSSIL MAMMALIA.

THE Mammalia, or warm-blooded quadrupeds which nourish
their young with milk, are so modern, geologically speaking,
that most of their fossil remains occur in comparatively
superficial deposits where they have not been much petrified
or mineralised. A large proportion of the fossil bones of
this Class thus appear almost as fresh as those of newly-
prepared skeletons, being merely stained by the sand or mud
in which they have been buried. Some of the bones, from
the most recent deposits and Pleistocene formations, are
indeed changed only by the loss of their animal-matter,
which causes them to become brittle and powdery; and
when these are disinterred it is necessary to harden them
by treatment with a solution of gelatine or glue, which often
produces a shiny surface. Most of the bones from the
sandstones, shales, and limestones of the earlier Tertiary
formations, have their animal- matter replaced by silica and
oxides of iron, which also fill their interstices and impart to
these specimens a natural hardness.

The fossil Mammalia are arranged in the Galleries not
according to their geological age but primarily in the natural
groups recognised by zoologists. The extinct representatives
of each Order are placed together, the various Sub-orders
and Families being usually arranged in a descending scale
from the highest to the lowest. This arrangement within
the Order obviously corresponds more or less with the
geological succession of its various representatives; for the

higher groups occur later in time, the lower groups earlier.
B
Case A.
Pier-case 2.

2 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

The series begins on the right-hand side of the entrance to
Gallery No. 1 and is continued round this Gallery to the
left-hand side of the same entrance. The peculiar Mammalia
of the Orders Edentata, Marsupialia, and Monotremata are
placed in Gallery No. 2. Many of the larger specimens are
necessarily mounted on separate pedestals or in separate
cases, not in their exact systematic position but as near the
allied fossils as possible.

Bone-BeEps.

Most of the fossil remains of Mammalia are obtained
from “bone-beds” or great accumulations of bones, which
have been formed by the death and rapid burial of large
troops of animals, or by the washing together of portions of
skeletons by streams and currents. In the Island of Samos,
for example, there is an extensive bone-bed of Lower Pliocene
age, which seems to have resulted from the destruction of
herds of quadrupeds by a fall of volcanic dust from some
neighbouring eruption. In Greece there are several bone-
beds also of Lower Pliocene age, which must have accumu-
lated rapidly in lakes or temporary pools. These have been
excavated especially at Pikermi, near Athens, and a fine slab
from one of them, presented by Mr. Alexander Skousés, is
shown in a special Case A, near Table-case 1. In this small
specimen (Plates IJ, III) there are remains of carnivores,
antelopes, gazelles, the three-toed horse (Hipparion), and
two birds, crowded together in red marl, which was originally
mud washed down from the neighbouring marble-range of
Pentelicon. Many of the bones are in natural association
(as, for instance, those of one bent leg of Hipparion), showing
that parts of the skeletons were buried rapidly before all
the ligaments and muscles which held them together had
decayed. At Olivola, in the Carrara Mountains, Italy, there
is an Upper Pliocene torrent-deposit filled with bones and
pebbles; and good examples of this are shown in Pier-case 2
(top shelf). In many places, in the deposits left by rivers,
there are great collections of bones brought together by
eddying currents, such as those discovered in the valley of
the Thames during the working of brick-fields at Ilford and
Crayford. There are also numerous fissures, especially in
limestone districts, largely filled with accumulations of bones
which have fallen or been washed into them. When these
bones are mingled with angular fragments of rock and
B.M. GUIDE FOSS. MAMM. anp BIRDS. PLATE II.

 

Block of Lower Pliocene Marl from Pikermi, Greece, crowded with remains of Mammals
and a few bones of Birds; about one-fifth nat. size. The central skuil belongs
to Hipparion, the surrounding bones to Hipparion, various antelopes, and one
small carnivore. (Case A.)

(To face p. 2,
B.M. GUIDE FOSS. MAMM. aAnp BIRDS. PLATE IIT.

 

Block of Lower Pliocene Marl from Pikermi, Greece, crowded with bones (opposite
side of specimen shown in Plate II.). The bent hind limb of Hipparion is
conspicuous, surrounded by other bones of this animal and antelopes, with
bird-bones below. (Case A.)

{To face p. 3.
MAMMALIA. 3

cemented together by carbonate of lime, they are termed Pier-case 2.
“bone-breccias” (Italian breccia, a crumb). Examples are
shown from Gibraltar, from Minas Geraes, Brazil, and from
the Wellington Caves, New South Wales (Pier-case 2, top
shelf). Treacherous ground, like a swamp or peat-bog, is
often rich in the skeletons and other remains of animals
which have become mired by accident. The salt marshes
or “licks” of North America thus yield remarkable skeletons
of the mastodon (Stand B), while the tundras of Siberia
entomb innumerable carcases of the mammoth and woolly
rhinoceros.

CAVERNS.

The bone-bearing deposits on the floors of caverns in Wall-case

limestone districts are particularly interesting, because in ,,, y
: : : ier-case 2.

many cases the fossil remains have not been introduced by Table-case
accident, but by men or wild beasts which have inhabited 1.
these retreats. In England and Wales, for example, a large
proportion of the caverns were hyzna-dens during the
Pleistocene period, and the remains both of the hyenas and
of their prey are found in the red clay covering the floor.
Other caverns were inhabited by primitive man, either
exclusively by him or only at times when the hyenas were
driven out; and in such cases there are articles of human
workmanship, traces of fire, and even bones of man himself,
in the same kind of deposit. This “cave-earth,” as it is
termed, is mainly the residue of decomposed limestone, and
it is mixed with drippings of lime-water, which evaporate
and leave a crust of carbonate of lime. When a cavern
becomés deserted and the drippings are undisturbed, the
limy crust thickens slowly into a layer of “ stalagmite,”
which seals up whatever may be beneath in a permanent
state of preservation. A specimen of the resulting floor
from Brixham Cave, near Torquay, enclosing an antler of a
reindeer, is seen in Wall-case 1. An interesting piece of
stalagmite enclosing human remains, from the cavern of
Bruniquel, France, is also shown in the same case.

MAMMALS OF PLEISTOCENE EUROPE,

Unfortunately, the surface of the land changes so rapidly
by weathering and “denudation” (natural wearing down
and washing away), that no once-inhabited caverns hitherto
discovered date back further than the Pleistocene period.

B2
Wall-case
1.
Pier-case 2.
mpbls sabe

Pier-case 2.

Wall-case
1

Pier-case 2.

4 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

For this comparatively modern geological epoch, however,
they have furnished a nearly complete idea of the human
races and the animal life inhabiting western Europe at
least ; and a typical collection of remains illustrating this
story is exhibited in Wall-case 1, Pier-case 2, Table-case 1,
and two adjoining special frames.

The western portion of continental Europe in the Pleisto-
cene period included the British Isles, which had not at that
time been separated from the mainland. The probable
extent of the land is shown by a map on the pillar adjoining
Pier-case 2. The hollow at present occupied by the North
Sea would then be a wide valley or plain through which
rivers flowed; and it was inhabited by troops of mammals
whose remains lie scattered in abundance over the Dogger
Bank and other portions of the existing floor of the sea.
These bones and teeth are continually dredged up by the
fishermen, and a typical series of them, from the collection
of Mr. J. J. Owles, of Great Yarmouth, is shown in Pier-
case 2. Here there is evidence of wolf, hyzena, bear, beaver,
ox, bison, an extinct fallow-deer (C. brownz), Irish deer, rein-
deer, elk, horse, woolly rhinoceros, and mammoth. Though
the specimens were doubtless originally buried in the sands
and gravels deposited by the rivers, they must have been
washed out by the scour of the tides and currents, for they
have lain for some time exposed on the sea-bed, as shown
by the remains of serpule, oyster spat, and other marine
organisms upon them.

As proved by the fragmentary bones and teeth exhibited
in Wall-case 1 and Pier-case 2, the British ca\erns yield
evidence of a remarkable series of mammals living together
in this part of Europe during the Pleistocene period, some
being now confined to the Arctic Regions, others to the
Tropics, others still living here, and some now quite
extinct. The complete list (except rats, mice, etc.) is as
follows :— :

NortTHERN anD Arctic Mammatia,

Glutton (Gulo luscus).

Arctic Fox (Canis lagopus).

Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus).

Lemming (Myodes lemmus and Cuniculus torquatus).
Pica (Lagomys pusillus).

Marmot (Arctomys marmotta).

Souslik (Spermophilus erythrogenoides).
MAMMALIA. 5

TEMPERATE MamMALIA.

Wild Cat (Felis catus).
Lynx (Felis lynz).

Otter (Lutra vulgaris).
Badger (Meles taxus).

Stoat (Mustela erminea).
Weasel (Mustela vulgaris).
Marten (Mustela martes).
Fox (Canis vulpes).

Wolf (Canis lupus).

Brown Bear (Ursus arctos).
Grisly Bear (Ursus horribilis),
Horse (Equus caballus).
Bison (Bison bonasus).
Roebuck (Capreolus caprea).
Stag (Cervus elaphus).

Wild Boar (Sus scrofa).
Hare (Lepus euwropezus).
Rabbit (Lepus cuniculus).
Beaver (Castor fiber).

SouTHERN MAMMALIA.

Lion (Felis leo).

Leopard (Felis pardus).

Kaffir Cat (Felis caffra).

Spotted Hyena (Hyezna crocuta).
Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius).

Extinct MamMMatia.

Sabre-toothed Tiger (Machzrodus latidens).
Short-nosed Cat (Felis brevirostris).
Cave-bear (Ursus speleus).

Woolly Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros antiquitatis).
Narrow-nosed Rhinoceros (RK. leptorhinus).
Large-nosed Rhinoceros (£. megarhinus).
Irish Deer (Cervus giganteus).

Urus (Bos primigenius).

Mammoth (Elephas primigenius).
Straight-tusked Elephant (Elephas antiquus).

The remains of some of these animals have an interesting
distribution. The cave-bear occurs most abundantly in the
oldest layer of the floor, as in Kent’s Cavern and the Cres-
well Caves. It is the only animal found in some of the
caverns of Franconia and the Harz Mountains, Germany,
where most of the individuals are aged and seem to have
retreated to these quiet spots to die. The British lion
appears to have been most numerous in the neighbourhood
of the Mendip Hills. The hippopotamus ranged as far north
as Kirkdale Cave in the Vale of Pickering, Yorkshire. The

Wall-case
1

Pier-case 2.
Wall-case

Pier-case 2.

Table-case
1.

6 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

mammoth occurs chiefly in the hyzna-dens, where it is
represented only by the teeth of young individuals which
would be a much more ready prey than the full-grown beasts.
The hyzna-dens are easily recognised, not merely by the
abundance of the remains of the hyznas themselves, but
also by their “coprolites” (or fossilised excrement) and the
gnawed bones of their prey. The tooth-marks of these
animals are often quite distinct; and the long bones of their
prey are usually represented only by the middle of the shaft,
the ends having been gnawed away until the hyenas could
scoop out the whole of the marrow with their tongue. Very
good examples are exhibited from the Brixham, Doward’s
Wood, Wookey, and Creswell Caves.

The old river-deposits in the valley of the Thames, which
are contemporaneous with the lower cavern deposits, have
yielded remains of the same mammals as the latter, with the
addition of the elk (Alces machlis), the musk-ox (Ovibos
moschatus), and the saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica). These
will be referred to again when treating of the systematic
collection.

Man ASSOCIATED WITH PLEISTOCENE MAMMALS.

During the whole of the Pleistocene period, while the
mammals just enumerated lived in western Europe, man was
undoubtedly present as a wandering hunter. Very few of
his bones occur; but his implements of stone and bone, with
occasional traces of his fires, are found in intimate association
with the remains of the wild beasts. A few examples of the
primitive implements are arranged in Table-case 1 and in the
drawers of an adjoining cabinet, which contains the greater
part of the late Sir Joseph Prestwich’s collection.

All the stone implements found in the Pleistocene
deposits are of the “ Paleolithic” or ancient-stone-age type,
tc, they are roughly chipped (not polished), and their
broadest end would be grasped or fixed, while their narrowest
or pointed end would be used for chopping, cutting, or
scraping. In the valley of the Thames, as in many other
places, these implements were of flint; and some of the spots
on the river-bank where the Paleolithic hunter actually
made his equipment have been discovered. One such
“ floor,” explored by Mr. Flaxman C. J. Spurrell at Crayford
in Kent, is illustrated by a selection from his collection
in Table-case 1. Here are the flakes which were struck
MAMMALIA, 7

away in trimming the flint-nodules to shape, and among Table-case
them is a broken jaw of a woolly rhinoceros, which may 1.
possibly represent part of the workman’s food. There are

also completed implements. One example was accidentally

broken before it was finished, and so thrown away. Mr.

Spurrell recovered the two pieces, and also the numerous

flakes which were struck off in the fashioning of it. With

 

Fie. 1.—Block of Flint from Crayford, Kent, broken by Paleolithic Man
in making an implement (A), which was never finished because it
was accidentally fractured; one-third nat. size. (Spurrell Collection,
Table-case 1.)

great patience and skill he replaced all the flakes, thus Table-case
restoring the flint-nodule to the original form which it had 1.
when Paleolithic man selected it for his work (Fig. 1).

The finest and most varied Palzxolithic stone implements
(flint or chert) are found with the bones of the Pleistocene
mammals in the higher layers of the caverns. They denote
a more advanced race of men, which Professor Boyd Dawkins
a case

Table-case
la.

8 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

has compared with the living Eskimo. The stone imple-
ments are supplemented by ‘Done harpoons, bone pins or
awls, and even by well-made bone needles. The sinews of
reindeer were doubtless used for sewing together skins,
just as they are employed by the Lapps and Eskimo at the
present day. Pierced teeth were probably strung together
into necklaces and armlets. There are also incised bones,
with outlines roughly portraying the animals of the chase,
Examples of the stone and bone implements from Kent’s
Cavern, Torquay, and from the French caverns, are shown in
Table-case 1. One incised reindeer antler in the same Case
from a French cavern displays the rough outline of the fore-
part of a horse. Plaster casts of more celebrated bone
implements and outline sketches of the same age, are placed
in a frame on the wall adjoining the window.

This small selection of the handiwork of Paleolithic
man is exhibited here merely to illustrate his association
with the Pleistocene mammals. The principal collection
both of Paleolithic and later workmanship in the British
Museum is placed in the Department of British and Medieval
Antiquities at Bloomsbury, and is described in “A Guide to
the Antiquities of the Stone Age,” obtainable at the British
Museum, Bloomsbury, W.C.

The late Sir Joseph Prestwich and some other geologists
have expressed the opinion, that there is evidence of the
presence of man in western Europe at a remote time even
before most of our valleys were excavated and before the
present drainage-system of our land was established. This
evidence consists in rough pieces of flint, which seem to have
been chipped artificially along one or more edges, and may
have been used by man. These supposed implements were
first noticed by Mr. Benjamin Harrison in the high-level
plateau-gravels, probably of Upper Pliocene age, in Kent;
and many of his specimens are included in the Prestwich
Collection, of which the principal series is exhibited in
Table-case 1. They are termed “eoliths” by those who
believe that they represent the dawn of the Stone Age of
Man.

BRITISH PLIOCENE MAMMALS.

Very little is known of the mammals inhabiting the
British area during the Pliocene period. They are “only
represented by very fragmentary remains in the marine
Pliocene Crag deposits of East Anglia, and by equally un-
MAMMALIA, 9

satisfactory teeth and bones lately found in a fissure in the Table-case

Carboniferous Limestone near Buxton, Derbyshire. A typical
series of the Crag fossils is exhibited in Table-case 1a.
Mastodon, Hipparion, Tapirus, Gazella, and Hyzxnarctos, are
the most noteworthy genera. Some of the specimens may
have been washed out of Miocene deposits.

SYSTEMATIC COLLECTION.
CLass.—_MAMMALIA.

Sus-cLass ],—EUTHERIA.

OrvER JI,—PRIMATES.
SUB-ORDER 1,—Anthropoidea.

As already mentioned, the bones and teeth of man are
very rare in geological formations—he is usually represented
merely by his handiwork. A few important specimens,
however, have been discovered, and plaster casts of these
are exhibited in Table-case 1. There is a copy of the top
of a skull, of a very lowly type, found with the remains of
Pleistocene mammals in a cavern in the Neanderthal, near
Diisseldorf,Germany. There are also copies of two imperfect
skulls and some limb-bones of a similar lowly kind of man
discovered in undoubted association with Pleistocene mammals
in the cavern of Spy, near Namur, Belgium. These specimens
seem to represent a human race inferior to any now existing,
but comprising powerfully built individuals. The forehead
is low; the bony ridges above the eyes are very prominent ;
and the chin is somewhat retreating. The radius and ulna
are unusually divergent in the middle of the fore-arm. The
femur is somewhat bent, and the tibia is comparatively
short, so that the leg cannot have been quite upright in
walking.

la.

Table-case
1

Pier-cases
2, 3.

Most of the actual bones of man preserved in the Pier-case 2.

collection are probably quite modern compared with the
primitive race just mentioned. In Table-case 1 there are
parts of the skeleton of an aged man found at a depth of
34 feet in the Thames mud during the excavation of Tilbury
Docks. In Pier-case 2 is placed the famous human skeleton
Pier-case 2.

Table-case
1

Pier-case 3.

Pier-case 3.

10 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

fossilised in limestone, which was obtained in 1813 by Sir
Alexander Cochrane, R.N., from the island of Grande-Terre,
near that of Guadaloupe in the West Indies. The rock in
which this specimen was discovered is quite a modern beach-
formation.

The oldest known traces of a man-like skeleton are the
roof of a small skull, two grinding teeth, and a diseased
femur, discovered by Professor E. Dubois in a bed of volcanic
ash containing remains of Pliocene mammals near Trinil in
Java. A plaster cast of the piece of skull is placed in Table-
case 1. It shows that the capacity of the brain-case in this
animal, which has been named Pithecanthropus erectus, can
scarcely have exceeded two-thirds that of the average man.
The forehead is very low, and the bony ridges above the
eyes are prominent.

The man-like apes or Simiide, which are represented at
the present day by the gibbons, orangs, chimpanzees, and
gorillas, in the tropics of Asia and Africa, also lived in
southern Europe in the latter part of the Miocene period. A
characteristic thigh-bone of one of these apes (Paidopithex
rhenanus) has been found in the lowest deposits of the
Pliocene period even so far north as Eppelsheim, Hesse-
Darmstadt. All the fossil forms are known merely by pieces
of jaws and isolated limb-bones, of which plaster casts are
exhibited in Pier-case 3.

The Old World monkeys are proved to date back to the
Middle Miocene period in Europe. Mesopithecus, from the
Lower Pliocene of Pikermi, near Athens, is known by nearly
all parts of the skeleton, and fine skulls are shown in Pier-
case 3. It is allied to the living Indian Semnopithecus.
Macacus, which still survives in Europe on the rock of
Gibraltar, is represented by one molar tooth (named Macacus
pliocenus by Owen) from the Pleistocene brick-earth of Grays,
Essex. No other evidence of a fossil monkey has been found
in Britain.

SUB-ORDER 2.—Lemuroidea.

The lemurs, which are evidently of a lower grade than
the monkeys and apes, immediately preceded these Anthro-
poidea both in Europe and North America, and became
extinct, at least in Europe, as soon as the latter appeared.
They were quite abundant in both regions during the Eocene
and Oligocene periods. Fine skulls and other remains of
Adapis and Necrolemur, which are typical lemurs from the
MAMMALIA. 11

red Phosphorites of southern France, are shown in Pier- Pier-case 3.
case 3. There are also jaws of the same animals from the
Upper Eocene of Hordwell, Hampshire (Fig. 2), and jaws of
an allied genus from the
Eocene of Dakota, U.S.A.
At the present day the lemurs
are confined to Madagascar,
parts of Africa and the
southern Asiatic region. They
are especially characteristic of
Madagascar, and are all small
animals adapted exclusively Fic. 2.—Palatal view of left upper
for a life in trees. In the teeth of a Lemur (ddapis magna)
: from Upper Eocene, Hordwell,
surface deposits and caverns of Hampshire; nat.size. (Pier-case3.)
Madagascar theirfossil remains
are numerous, and among these it is easy to recognise large
and even gigantic extinct kinds (Wesopithecus, Megaladapis,

 

 

Fig. 3.—Model of skull and lower jaw of a supposed aquatic Lemur
(Megaladapis insignis), from a Cavern in Madagascar; one quarter
nat. size. (Pier-case 3.)

etc.) which lived in the Pleistocene and Prehistoric periods.
The largest species of Megaladapis (M. insignis), of which
various fragments are exhibited and of which a restored
Pier-case 3.

Pier-case 3.

12 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

model of the skull (Fig. 3) is placed on the top shelf ot
Pier-case 3, must have been about as large as a donkey.
It clearly did not live in trees, and it may perhaps have
been adapted for an aquatic life. The bony rims of the
orbits are curiously produced and arranged like those of
a hippopotamus.

OrpDER II —CARNIVORA.
SUB-ORDER 1.—Carnivora Vera.

The true cats or Felide are well represented among
fossils, which trace back the ancestry of this highest surviving
tribe of flesh-eaters to Miocene European animals much
resembling the existing Cryptoprocta of Madagascar. Felis
itself first appears in the Middle or Upper Miocene of
Europe, and culminated in the great cave-lion, which is
probably only a variety of the existing Felis leo of Africa
and Asia. Among the numerous remains of this animal
in Pier-case 3 may be particularly noticed the fine skull
obtained by Mr, Flaxman Spurrell from the Pleistocene
brick-earth of Crayford, Kent. The small ancestral Felide
are represented by jaws of Pseudelurus and Progwlurus from
the Miocene of France.

Still more deadly than the Felide must have been the
extinct Nimravide or Macherodontide, of which many
were as large as lions, with over-grown upper canine teeth
and with fore-limbs as effective as grappling irons. A
diagram of a complete skeleton of AMachxrodus from the
pampa of South America (now in the National Museum,
Buenos Aires), is placed in the upper part of Pier-case 3,
above the remains of this and the allied genera. Machexrodus
is often named the “sabre-toothed tiger,” in allusion to its
large, laterally-compressed upper canine teeth, which have
finely serrated edges. The mouth seems to have opened
to an abnormal extent to permit the effective use of these
terrible weapons (Fig. 4). As shown by the fragmentary
fossils, Macherodus is represented first in the Miocene of
France and Germany; next in the Pliocene of France,
England, Italy, Greece, Hungary, the Isle of Samos, Persia,
and India; and finally by the largest species in the Pleis-
tocene of France, Germany, Italy, England, North America,
Ecuador, Brazil, and Argentina. Teeth from Kent’s Cavern
and the Creswell caves prove its association with the cave-

Cy
MAMMALIA. 13

men in England. The complete extinction before historic Pier-case 3.
times of so widely-spread an animal is very remarkable.
Hoplophoneus, of which skulls are exhibited, is an allied

 

Fia. 4.—Diagram of head of the “Sabre-toothed Tiger” (Macherodus
neogzus), from the Pampa Formation of Buenos Aires, Argentine
Republic, showing the widely open mouth; one-eighth nat. size.
(After W. D. Matthew.)

genus from the Oligocene White River Formation of North
America. Husmilus, represented by jaws, is one of the small
ancestral forms from the Oligocene Phosphorites of southern
France.

In the exhibition of remains of Hyzenide (Pier-case 3) Pier-case 8.
the largest space is occupied by the European cave-hyena,
which seems to have been essentially identical with the
existing spotted hysena (Hya#na crocuta) of Africa. Indi-
viduals in all stages of growth are represented by the jaws
and teeth from the English caverns, and by other fragments
from river deposits and the Norfolk Forest Bed. Other true
hyenas are known by fossils from the Lower Pliocene of
Greece, Samos, Persia, and India; but there are no traces
of 'the family in America. Jetitheriwm, from the Lower Taple-case
Pliocene of Greece, Samos, Persia, and India, is known not 2.
only by fine skulls, of which there are some in Table-case 2,
but also by the greater part of the skeleton. It is an
ancestral genus, connecting the Hyznide with the
Viverride.

The Viverride, or civets, mongooses, and their allies,
Table-case
2.

Pier-case 3.

Pier-case 4.
Table-case
3.

14 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

are very old Carnivora, which appear to have been always
small animals confined to the Old World. As shown by
remains in Table-case 2, Viverra itself seems to have lived
unchanged from the Upper Eocene period to the present day.

The Mustelidx, or weasels, badgers, and otters (Table-
case 2), also date back to the Upper Eocene period, beginning
in the Old World and then spreading to America. The
occurrence of the glutton (Guwlo luscus) in the English and
Welsh cave-earths, and in the Forest Bed, is interesting.

The raccoons, or Procyonide, are scarcely known among
fossils; but teeth from the Red Crag (Lower Pliocene) of
Suffolk seem to belong to the existing Indian Adlurus or a
closely allied genus (plaster cast in Table-case 2),

The Canide, or wolves, foxes, jackals and dogs, have
scarcely changed in any essential respects since the Miocene
period, when they already flourished both in the Old World
and in North America. Murchison’s famous “fossil fox of
Oeningen,” from the Upper Miocene of Baden, is a typical
member of the family. Cynodictis and allied genera (Table-
case 2), from the Oligocene Phosphorites and the Upper
Eocene of France, connect the Canidae with the Viverridae.

The bears, or Urside, which are at present distributed
over nearly all the world, except Australia and New Zealand,
have only had so wide a range since the dawn of the
Pleistocene period. So far as known, the family began its

 

Fic. _5.—Skull and lower jaw of the Cave-bear (Ursus speleus), from a
Pleistocene Cavern Deposit in Bavaria; about one-sixth nat. size.

existence in Europe and Asia, where there are many remains
of Pliocene, Miocene, and Oligocene animals which must be
regarded as ancestors. The true bears of modern times are
mixed feeders, and have teeth modified accordingly. In the
MAMMALIA. 15

Pleistocene period an extinct species of very large size, whose Pier-case 4.
remains are frequently found in the caverns of Europe, Table-case
is named the cave-bear (Ursus speleus). A skeleton, recon- ;
structed from the bones of several individuals from French

caverns, is exhibited in Pier-case 4. Remains of this species

(Fig. 5) are common in the English and Welsh caverns, but

it does not appear to have reached
Ireland or North America. <A curious
snub-nosed bear (Arctotheriwm), also
of large size, existed in the Pleistocene
period in America; and a partially
reconstructed skeleton of it, from the
pampa of Buenos Aires, is mounted in
Pier-case 4. In the Pliocene of
Europe and Asia, and in the Miocene ;
of Europe, there are bear-like quad- Fic. b.Yiew of grind
rupeds with square (not elongated) tosh pe onancios,
upper grinding teeth (Fig. 6). A very from the Red Crag of
large species, Hyxnarctos sivalensis, Suffolk; nat. size.
from the Siwalik Formation of India,

is represented by a fine skull and other remains in Pier-
case 4, This animal seems to have differed from the bears
and resembled the dogs in having a very prominent elbow.
Older fossils from the Miocene and Oligocene of Europe,
named Amphicyon and Cephalogale (Fig. 7), belong to animals

Pier-case 4.

 

Table-case

 

Fic. 7.—Right ramus of lower jaw of a primitive dog-like, bear-like
Mammal (Cephalogale brevirostris), from the Oligocene Phosphorites
of France; nat. size.

of a strictly flesh-eating kind, which were neither bears nor
dogs, but intermediate between the two families. Good
examples of the dentition are seen in Table-case 2.
16 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

SUB-ORDER 2.—Creodonta.

Table-case The true Carnivora can thus be traced back to the Upper
on Eocene, when most of them were small creatures closely

(After W. B. Scott.)

Fic. 8.—Skeleton of a Creodont (Hy#nodon cruentus), from the Oligocene of Dakota, U.S.A.;
one-seventh nat. size.

 

resembling the existing Viverride. They are preceded in
the Middle and Lower Eocene, both in the Old World and
MAMMALIA. 17

in North America, by peculiar lowly Carnivora with a Table-case
comparatively small brain, in which the cerebral hemi- 2a.
spheres are nearly smooth and do not cover the mid-

brain. In these animals there is no special “sectorial”

or “carnassial” (flesh-cutting tooth) near the back of the

jaw, and the whole dentition is very similar to that of

the flesh-eating pouched animals (Marsupialia) now living

in Australia and Tasmania. They were, in fact, regarded

as Marsupialia for many years, until it was discovered

that some of them possessed a complete milk-dentition

which was replaced by the usual permanent teeth. The
existing Marsupialia never have more than one milk-tooth
replaced on each side of either jaw.

These Creodonta (“ flesh-teeth ”), as they are termed, were
sometimes as large as lions or bears, and survived in the
northern hemisphere at least until the beginning of the
Miocene period. A typical series of remains, chiefly of the
Upper Eocene and Oligocene genera Hyznodon (Fig. 8) and
Pterodon, is shown in Table-case 24. A fine jaw of a large
Pterodon from the Upper Eocene of Egypt is especially
noteworthy.

The so-called Sparassodonta from the early Tertiary
of South America seem to have been Creodonts in which
only one or two of the premolars and the canine were
preceded by milk-teeth. Portions of jaws of Prothylacinus
and Borhyzna (plaster casts), from the Santa Cruz Formation
of Patagonia, are exhibited in Table-case 24.

SUB-ORDER 3.—Pinnipedia.

The seals, walruses, and their allies are scarcely repre- Table-cases
sented among fossils, and no important ancestors are known, 1% 3:
The tusks of a large walrus (Trichecodon hualeyi) have been
found in the Pliocene Red Crag of Suffolk (see Table-case
la). A few fragments of seals from the Norfolk Forest
Bed are shown in Table-case 3; and with these are plaster
casts of other remains from the Pliocene Crag of Belgium.

Orper IIJ.—INSECTIVORA.

Among the fragmentary fossil remains of the shrews, Table-case
moles, and hedgehogs, there are none of much interest; but 2a.
they date back at least to the close of the Eocene period.

c
Table-case
2a.

Table-case
2a.

Pier-cases
6-10.
Table-cases

Oe

Pier-cases
6-8.

Table-case
4,

18 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

Jaws and limb-bones of the desman (Myogale moschata), an
animal now confined to south-east Russia, are shown from
the Norfolk Forest Bed.

OrpER 1V.—CHIROPTERA.

Fossil skeletons discovered in France prove that the bats
were as completely formed in the Upper Eocene as they are
at the present day; but there are only imperfect skulls and
jaws in the collection of the Museum (Table-case 2a).

OrDER V.—UNGULATA.

As the hoofed animals are traced backwards through
geological time, the fossils gradually lead to small marsh-
dwelling or forest-dwelling predecessors, which were adapted
to live on succulent vegetation. The existing tapirs, pigs,
peccaries, hippopotamus, and chevrotains, are the least
altered survivors of this ancestry; while the rhinoceroses,
horses, cattle, giraffes, deer, and elephants, with effective
grinding teeth, are the highest and newest members of the
Order.

SuB-ORDER 1,.—Perissodactyla.

It seems probable that at the dawn of the Eocene period
all the hoofed animals were five-toed ; but most of them soon
began to exhibit a tendency towards the reduction of the
spreading foot. In one group comprising the existing tapirs,
rhinoceroses, and horses, the whole weight of the body
gradually became concentrated on the middle toe, so that
this grew stout at the expense of the other toes. Thus arose
the uneven-toed hoofed animals or Perissodactyla. The
tapirs retain four toes on the fore foot, three on the hind
foot ; the rhinoceroses, three toes on each foot; and the true
horses, only. one toe on each foot (see Fig. 9).

The rhinoceroses, which are restricted to Africa and
the Indian region at the present day, wandered far from
tropical climes during the Pleistocene period and ranged
over nearly the whole of Europe and Asia, being common
even within the Arctic Circle. The northern species
(Rhinoceros antiquitatis or KR. tichorhinus) seems to have
been most closely related to the nearly extinct square-nosed
rhinoceros (f. simus) of Africa. It is commonly known as
MAMMALIA. 19

the “woolly rhinoceros,” because its mummified remains,
which are discovered in the frozen tundras of Siberia, prove
that the skin was covered with wool and long hair. It
possessed two horns, of which the foremost was so large
that the usually gristly partition between the right and left
halves of the nose-cavity became bony for a support, and
this is always conspicuous in well-preserved skulls. The
actual horns (which are never bony in rhinoceroses, but

 

Fic. 9.—Skeleton of Fore foot of three existing Perissodactyl or Uneven-
toed Ungulata—namely, Tapir (A), Rhinoceros (B), and Horse (C),
much reduced in size. R, radius; U, ulna; c, cuneiform; J, lunar;
8, scaphoid; w, unciform; m, magnum; ¢d, trapezoid ; tm, trapezium ;
Il, II, Iv, v, the several digits. (From Flower’s “ Osteology of the
Mammalia.’’)

merely hardened clusters of hair) are only preserved in the
frozen earth of the Arctic Circle. A small example is
exhibited with some skulls in Pier-case 6. The bones and
teeth of the woolly rhinoceros are common in British
Pleistocene deposits and on the bed of the North Sea; and
fine specimens are shown in Pier-case 6 and Table-case 4.
Some fragmentary remains from Chartham in Kent, are
especially interesting as being among the earliest discoveries
of fossil bones in England to attract notice. They were
c 2

Pier-cases

-8,
ae
20 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

Pier-cases described by William Somner in 1669 in a small printed
; fines tract entitled, “ Chartham News; or, A Brief Relation of some
: : strange Bones there lately digged up, in some grounds of
Mr. John Somner of Canterbury;” but they were wrongly
supposed to belong to some “sea-monster.” One fine skull
and associated bones were found in an excavation beneath
the “ Daily Chronicle ” office in Fleet Street, London. Other
fragmentary remains from English caverns prove that this
rhinoceros was commonly preyed upon by the hyznas. One
oval plate of bone from Kent’s Cavern is particularly note-
worthy, and exhibits deep tooth-marks round its edge. It

 

Fie."10—Skulljand lower jaw of the Slender-nosed Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros
leptorhinus), from the Pleistocene of Ilford, Essex; one-eighth nat.
size. (Brady,Collection, Pier-case 6.)

is evidently the bone to which the front horn was fixed at
the time when the hyzenas gnawed it, and the limit of their
gnawing was determined by the size of the base of this
horn which has since decayed.
Pier-case 6. Two other species (2. leptorhinus and R. megarhinus)
Table-case, are represented in the Pleistocene deposits of England and
: the adjoining parts of the continent, in association with the
woolly rhinoceros. Fine skulls of 2. leptorhinus (Fig. 10)
from the Thames Valley are placed in Pier-case 6; and there
are teeth and jaws of this species and 2. megarhinus both in
Pier-case 6 and in Table-case 4. A slightly earlier rhinoceros
(R. etruscus), which commonly occurs in the Upper Pliocene
MAMMALIA. 21

of southern Europe, is also represented by jaws and teeth Pier-cases
in the Norfolk Forest Bed, from which Mr. Savin collected 7, 8
the series of specimens in Pier-case 7. True two-horned
thinoceroses are found in the Lower Pliocene of Eppelsheim
(Hesse-Darmstadt), Pikermi (Greece), the Isle of Samos, and
Maragha (Persia), as shown by fine specimens in Pier-case 8.
Pliocene rhinoceroses are likewise found in the Siwalik
Formation of India, and here there are not only two-horned

species but also direct ancestors of the one-horned species

(B. unicornis) which now lives in India. Their remains were
collected chiefly by Falconer and Cautley and are exhibited

in Pier-case 7.

 

Fic. 11.—Skull and lower law of a Hornless Rhinoceros (Aceratherium
megalodus), from the Upper Miocene of Colorado, U.S.A.; one-sixth
nat. size. (After E. D. Cope.)

In the Miocene and Oligocene formations both of Europe pier-case 8.
and North America, and in the Lower Pliocene of Europe and
Asia, there is evidence of numerous ancestral rhinoceroses,
most of which were almost or quite hornless (e.g., Acera-
therium). In fact, the American representatives of the
Rhinoceride (Fig. 11) seem to have become extinct at the
end of the Miocene period before they had acquired more
than the slightest trace of a horn. As in the true modern
rhinoceroses, of course, this structure is never fossilised—its
presence or absence is merely inferred from the size of the
nasal bones and from the presence or absence of a roughness
Pier-case 8.

Pier-case 6.

Pier-case 8.
Case L.

Pier-case
10.

22 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

on the bone where the horn would be attached. The
earliest rhinoceroses are the smallest and have the front
teeth best developed. Some of them (Hyracodon), as
proved by the shape of the back of the skull, could only
use their jaws for crushing or chopping their food, and had
not acquired the powerful grinding bite characteristic of
their modern representatives. Illustrations are exhibited in
Pier-case 8 and Table-case 4.

A very peculiar rhinoceros, Elasmotherium sibiricum,
with a skull more than a yard in length, lived in Siberia and
part of south European Russia in the Pleistocene period. It
must have borne an enormous horn, not on the nose, but on
a bony prominence in the middle of the forehead above the
eyes. Its teeth, though formed on the rhinoceros-plan, are
shaped like those of a horse. They have crimped enamel
and must have been very effective grinders for a long-lived
animal. Plaster casts of the skull and other remains are
exhibited in Pier-case 6.

The Titanotheriide, of the Eocene and Oligocene periods
in America, seem to have been closely related to the early
thinoceroses. Some typical remains of the latest genus,
Titanotheriwm itself, are placed in Pier-case 8, and a fine
skull is exhibited in a special Case (marked L). The head is
shaped like that of a rhinoceros; but the roof of the nose-
cavity bears a pair of small bony horns or horn-cores, and
the teeth form an almost or quite continuous series in the
mouth. The fore foot has four toes, of which the two middle
ones are less unequal than in the tapirs; the hind foot has
three toes. Some species attained a very large size, 15 to
18 feet in length (Fig. 12).

The typical one-toed horses (of family Equide), which
are only found in a wild state at the present day in Africa
and Asia, ranged also over Europe and the whole of North
and South America during the Pleistocene period. Some of
them, whose bones cannot be distinguished from those of
Equus caballus, wandered even into the Arctic Regions.
Most of them belonged to the genus Lguwus, but a few in
South America were peculiar, notably the Hippidium and
Onohippidium found in the Argentine Republic. As shown
by a plaster cast of the skull in Pier-case 10, the latter genus
was characterised by a remarkable development of the nose :
it is also known to have possessed unusually short and stout
legs. All the American horses seem to have become extinct
before the New World was colonised from Europe in historic
MAMMALIA.

23

 

from the Oligocene of Dakota, U.S.A. ;

Fig. 12.—Skeleton of Titanotheriwm (Brontops) robustum,

C. Marsh.)

(After O.

about one twenty-fourth nat. size.
Pier-case
10.

Table-case
5.

Table-case

24 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

times; and the so-called wild horses now found there are
merely escapes from domestication.

The earliest remains of one-toed horses hitherto dis-
covered (Fig. 13, 1) occur in the Lower Pliocene Siwalik
Formation of India (Hquus sivalensis, Pier-case 10); and
they are first found in Europe in the Upper Pliocene, in
America in the Pleistocene. Their first appearance in
England is in the Norfolk Forest Bed, and their remains are
common both in the Pleistocene river-deposits of this country
and in caverns (Pier-case 10). These true horses are
immediately preceded in Asia, Northern Africa, Europe, and

Fig. 18.—Diagram showing the gradual loss of toes in the fore foot (a) and
increase of complexity in the grinding teeth (b) of successive Horse-
like Ungulata from Europe—namely, Hyracotheriwm (4), Anchitherium
(3), Hipparion (2), and Equus (1); much reduced, but not showing
relative size. Digits numbered 1, 11, Iv.

Is

Re
ca
Ga
A

4. #2
4 =
nH
ee
< n
A
_
4
=

North America, by slightly smaller animals, which are
already horses in every essential respect, but have a pair of
complete though diminutive side toes on each foot. The Old
World species : belong to the genus Hipparion (Fig. 13, 2),
and remains are exhibited from. India, Persia, Samos, Greece,
Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and the Red Crag of England.
Complete legs, skulls, and other remains from Pikermi,
Greece, are especially noteworthy i in Pier-case 10. Hipparion
has also been recorded from North America, where it
immediately succeeds another three-toed horse, Pr otohippus,
which is not represented in the collection.

The Miocene and Oligocene horse-like animals, both in
Europe and in North America, are still smaller than the
MAMMALIA. 25

Pliocene Hipparion. The grinding teeth in these animals Table-case
are less deepened than in the last-mentioned genus, those of 5.

the earlier forms being indeed quite low-crowned and only

fit for comparatively succulent vegetation. The side-toes

tend to become larger and touch the ground as they are

traced back in geological time. Typical remains of Anchi-

therium (Fig. 13, 3), from the Middle Miocene of Europe, and

of Mesohippus, from the Oligocene of North America, are

exhibited in Table-case 5.

The Eocene horse-like animals are still smaller than the Pier-case 9.
later forms just mentioned, and their immediate connection Table-case
with the horses would be difficult to recognise if all the links
of Oligocene and Miocene age remained unknown. A plaster

 

Fie. 14.—Left upper teeth in maxilla of Palzotherium crassum, from the
Upper Eocene Gypsum of Montmartre, Paris; three-quarters nat. size.
la-3a, three molars; 1p-4p, four premolars; other letters indicate
various tooth-cusps. (After A. Gaudry.)

cast of Protorohippus venticolus from the Wind River Forma-
tion of Wyoming, U.S.A., exhibited in Pier-case 9, affords a
good idea of one of these animals about as large as a fox,
and there are actual remains of the closely related Hyraco-
therium (Fig. 13, 4) from the London Clay (Lower Eocene)
of the London Basin in the same Case. The ridges on the
grinding teeth are more or less subdivided into tubercles ;
the neck is not very mobile; the fore limb has a complete
and separate ulna, allowing some power of twisting, and
there are four spreading toes; the hind limb has only three
complete toes. Palzwotherium and Lophiodon are allied genera
from the Eocene of Europe, and comprise some species as
large as rhinoceroses. Paleotherium (Figs. 14, 15) was first
26 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

Pier-case 9. discovered in the Paris Gypsum and studied by Cuvier, who
Tab ercade rightly recognised many points of resemblance in it to the

Pier-case 9.

living tapirs, and published in 1825 the accompanying
restored sketch of the animal (Fig. 15). As already men-
tioned, in fact, all the Eocene Perissodactyla are adapted for
dwelling in marshes, like the tapirs; and they are preceded
at the base of the Eocene by five-toed animals, like Phena-
codus (Pier-case 9), which is one of the small-brained Con-
dylarthra to be noticed below (p. 48).

The gradual changes in the feet, teeth, and skulls of the
horse-like hoofed animals, as they are traced through the
Tertiary period, are also illustrated by a series of plaster

 

Fic. 15.—Restoration of the skeleton and outline of the body of Palzo-
therium magnum, from the Upper Eocene; about one-thirtieth nat.
size. (After Cuvier.)|

casts and models arranged in a Case in the Gallery of
Domesticated Animals behind the Great Hall.

The distribution of the tapirs or Tapiride in the existing
world is very curious, and has only been explained by the
study of fossils. They occur exclusively in the Malayan
region of Asia, and in the tropical parts of America, not in
any intervening country. In the Pliocene and Miocene
periods, however, they ranged over most of Asia, Europe,
and North America. They are thus a vanishing race, which
has survived only at the two extremities of its former area
of distribution. A fine palate of Tapirus priscus, from the
Lower Pliocene of Eppelsheim, Hesse-Darmstadt, is exhibited
in Pier-case 9. There are also isolated teeth of Zapirus from
China and from the English Red Crag.
MAMMALIA. 27

SuB-ORDER 2.—Ancylopoda.

During part of the Miocene and Pliocene periods in Pier-case 9.
Europe, Asia and North America, there lived some large
three-toed quadrupeds which had grinding teeth much like
those of the Titanotheriidae and exhibited many resemblances
to the Perissodactyla in general, but differed from all known
Ungulata in the peculiar structure of the feet. In these
animals the weight of the body when walking seems to have
been mainly supported by the outer side of the twisted foot,
while the phalanges of each digit curve upwards on highly-
developed pulley-joints and end in a cleft, pointed, claw-
shaped bone—an arrangement suggesting the name Ancylo-

 

Fic. 16.—View of grinding surface of third right upper true molar tooth
of Chalicothertum sinense, from the Pliocene of China; nat. size.
(Pier-case 9.)

poda (“curve-feet”’) for the sub-order. The feet, indeed, are
so much like those of the extinct ground-sloths of America
and the existing pangolins (Manis) of the Old World, that
the isolated toe-bones were referred to the Edentata until a
nearly complete skeleton of one genus (Macrotherium) was
found in the Miocene of France. Among the remains
exhibited in Pier-case 9, may be particularly noted a toe of
Macrotherium from the Middle Miocene of Sansan, France;
a toe of Ancylotherium (lacking claw) from the Lower
Pliocene of Pikermi, Greece; and teeth of Chalicotherium
(Fig. 16) from the Pliocene of India and China.
Pier-cases
11-19.
Table-cases
6-10.

28 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

SuB-ORDER 3.—Artiodactyla.

In another group of hoofed marsh-dwellers of the
Eocene period the weight of the body soon became sup-
ported mainly by two of the middle toes (nos. II, IV),
which grew to be of equal size. Hence the Artiodactyla or
even-toed hoofed animals. In some cases, even before the
close of the Eocene period, the side-toes had dwindled and
practically disappeared, while the basal pieces (or meta-

 

Fic. 17.—Skeleton of Fore foot of three existing Artiodactyl or Even-toed
Ungulata—namely, Pig (A), Deer (B), and Camel (C), much reduced
in size. R, radius; U, ulna; c, cuneiform; 2, lunar; s, scaphoid;
uw, unciform; m, magnum; éd, trapezoid; 1, 111, Iv, v, the several
digits. (From Flower’s ‘“ Osteology of the Mammaiia.”’)

podium) of the pair of supporting toes became fused
together, thus producing the appearance of a “ cloven hoof.”
As the successive Tertiary periods followed, the Surna (pigs,
peccaries, and hippopotamus) alone retained their four
separate toes; the TyLopopA (camels and llamas) gradually
lost their side-toes, while the bases of their middle toes still
remained imperfectly fused at their lower end; the Tracu-
LINA (chevrotains) and Pscora (giraffes, deer, sheep, and
cattle) also lost their side toes more or less completely, and
MAMMALIA. 29

the “cloven hoof” arrangement attained perfection, working
on pulley-joints. These modifications of the feet are
illustrated in Fig 17.

Except that they have a relatively large, highly-
developed brain, and curiously modified front teeth which
grow throughout life, the Hippopotamide are very little
different from some of the early Eocene Artiodactyla.
They have indeed completely retained the aquatic and
marsh-dwelling habit. Although the hippopotamus is at
present confined to Africa, it also ranged over a large part of
Europe and Asia in the Pleistocene period. Remains of fine
animals which cannot be distinguished by their bones and
teeth from the existing African Hippopotamus amphibius,
are not uncommon in England even so far north as York-
shire. A large mandible and other remains from the valley
of the Cam at Barrington, near Cambridge, are exhibited in
Pier-case 11. In this and the adjacent Table-case 6, there
are also teeth and bones of the same species from the
Thames deposits, from Bedford, Essex, Oxfordshire, and
Suffolk, and from the Norfolk Forest Bed. A mandible and
other bones from the Upper Pliocene of Mont Perrier, Puy-
de-Déme, France, besides remains from the Arno valley in
Italy, are likewise shown in Pier case 11. ZH. pentlandi is
a smaller species, whose bones and teeth occur in such
enormous accumulations in the caverns of Sicily, that they
were dug out and exported from Palermo for many years to
be calcined for use in sugar-refining. Remains of the same
small species are shown from the caverns of Malta; and
there is a still more pigmy animal, H. minutus, whose bones
and teeth have lately been found in great abundance by
Miss D. M. A. Bate in the caverns of Cyprus (see Table-
case 6). The remains had probably been washed into the
caverns by streams and floods. Another small species,
H. madagascariensis, of which a reconstructed skeleton is
exhibited in Pier-case 11, seems to have been quite common
in Madagascar at a late geological period. No hippopotamus
now lives in Madagascar, and the bones and teeth of this
small species exhibit so many variations, that it doubtless
had a severe struggle for existence. Although the hippo-
potamus is now extinct in India, several species lived there
in the Pliocene and Pleistocene periods, as shown by the
Cautley Collection in Pier-case 12 and Table-case 6 (Fig. 18).
The Miocene and earlier representatives of the family still
remain to be discovered, most likely in Africa.

Pier-cases
11, 12.
Table-case
6.
30 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

 

Fic. 18.—Palatal view of skull (A), symphysis of lower jaw (B), and grinding
surface of molar tooth (C) of an extinct Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus
sivalensis), from the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills, India;-A
and B one-eighth nat. size, C one-half nat. size. (Pier-case 12.)

Pier-case The true pigs, or Suidee, have always been confined to
13. the Old World, and the oldest known species is Sus chwroides,
from the Middle and Upper Miocene of France and Italy.
Among the fossil remains
of this family in Pier-
case 13 may be noticed
skulls, jaws, and teeth of
the wild boar from England
and Ireland; some fine
skulls and jaws of the large
Fic. 19.—Grinding surface of third Sus erymanthius, from the
right lower true molar tooth of an [ower Pliocene of Pikermi,
custing ig (Sus erst), fom Greece; pieces of skulls
columns of talon of tooth. and jaws of other extinct
species from the Lower
Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills, India; and similar remains
of Hippohyus sivalensis, a pig from the Siwalik Formation
with deepened grinding teeth rendered very effective by the
crimping of their enamel.

 
MAMMALIA. 31

Nothing is known of the direct ancestors of the American
peccaries (Dicotylide). Remains of the typical Dicotyles
from the caverns of Brazil are exhibited in Table-case 7.

Among earlier animals allied to the pigs, the large
Hlotherium, from the Oligocene and Miocene of Europe and
North America, is especially remarkable. As shown by
remains in Pier-case 13, it had only two toes, with the
merest rudiment of the outer toes. Listriodon, from the
Miocene of Europe and India, has a skull like a pig, but
grinding teeth with cross-ridges like those of a tapir (Table-
case 7). Hyotheriwm is provided with large upper canine
teeth (Table-case 7). Cheropotamus is represented in the
same Case by jaws and teeth from the Upper Eocene of the
Isle of Wight and of France.

In these early allies of the pigs the molar teeth are
nearly square and bear regularly arranged cusps or ridges.
In some of them the tooth-cusps tend to become crescent-
shaped, and hence make an approach to the trenchant
erescentic (“selenodont”) cusps of the teeth in the higher
Artiodactyla which chew the cud (“ruminants”) One
family, that of the Anthracotheriide, with molar teeth in
this condition, arose in the Upper
Eocene and was represented during
the Oligocene period by many moder-
ately large species, which ranged
over the greater part of the northern
hemisphere. These were  stoutly-
built animals, some probably much
resembling the pigs in outward
aspect, others more nearly allied to
the hippopotamus. All of them have
four or five separate toes. <Anthra-
cotherium (“coal beast”) itself, which 4.4 99 Grin sameasaes
is well represented in Table-case 7, of third right upper true
is so called from the circumstance molar tooth of Hyopo-
that its remains were first discovered Giese heii Tee
in the lignite or brown-coal of Savoy. stead, Isle of Wight;
It is chiefly found in the Oligocene _ nat. size. (Table-case 7.)
of Europe, but also seems to occur
in the corresponding deposits in Dakota, U.S.A., while a
few teeth have been assigned to it from the Lower Pliocene
Siwalik Formation of India. The European 4. magnum
must have been as large as a rhinoceros. Hyopotamus is
another genus, of which the detached teeth (Fig. 20) are

Table-case
7.

 
GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

32

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Sy'g'a ‘ejoxeq Jo eue008119 eyy wor ‘snyouhyshyovig snunjodohy yo uoyeTeEYS—'TS ‘OLA

= EE
CoP Ler

     

  

   

Le
MAMMALIA, 83

among the commonest fossils from the Hempstead Beds
of the Isle of Wight (Table-case 7). Several skulls have
been obtained from the Oligocene of Ronzon, France, and
nearly complete skeletons from the Oligocene of Dakota,
U.S.A. (Fig. 21). Brachyodus occurs not only in Europe, but
also in the Miocene of Egypt. Merycopotamus is found in
the Lower Pliocene Siwalik Formation of India and Burma,
and various skulls and jaws are exhibited in Pier-case 13
and Table-case 7.

The actual fore-runners of the ruminants are placed in
Table-case 8. They show (1) the gradual acquisition of the
typical “selenodont” molar teeth, (2) the beginning of the

 

Fic. 22.—Right upper teeth of Anoplotherium cayluxense, from the Oligo-
cene Phosphorites of France; nat. size. (Table-case 8.)

 

Fic. 23.—Right upper teeth of immature Anoplotheriwm secundarium
from the Upper Eocene of Débruge, France; nat. size. (Table-
case 8.)

gap (“diastema”) between the front teeth and the back
teeth, and (3) the gradual fusion of the bases of the two
supporting toes. In the Anoplotheriide, which are well
represented by Anoplotheriwm from the Upper Eocene of
France, England, and Germany, the crescent-shaped tooth-
cusps are low (Figs. 22, 23), the teeth are in a continuous
row in the jaw without any gap, and there are three well-
developed toes on each foot. The name Anoplotheriwm
(“unarmed beast”) was proposed by Cuvier, who first
described the animal and was impressed by its complete
lack of defensive weapons. The Cenotheriide are smaller
four-toed animals, from the European Oligocene and Lower
D

Table-case
7.

Table-case
8.
34 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

 

 

 

 

Fie. 24.—Skull of a primitive Ruminant (Cxnotherium filholt), lateral (a),
upper (8), and palatal (c) aspects, from the Oligocene Phosphorites
of France; nat. size. (Table-case 8.)

 
MAMMALIA. 35

Miocene formations, with deeper and more effective cusps on Table-case
the molar teeth, As shown by the numerous skulls of 8.
Cenotherium in the collection (Fig. 24), there is often a
slight gap between its canine tooth and the premolars.
The Xiphodontide are small two-toed animals from the
Upper Eocene and Oligocene of England, France, and
adjoining countries. Dichodon (Fig. 26) is a typical genus.
The Oreodontide are slightly more advanced ruminants
ranging from the Upper Eocene to the Upper Miocene in
North America. Fine skulls of Oreodon are exhibited,
showing the lower canine tooth shaped like an incisor, while
the foremost premolar is enlarged to usurp its function.

The nearest surviving relatives of these primitive
ruminants are the little chevrotains, or Tragulide, which
are now found only in the marshes of the Indo-Malayan
region and western Africa. They never possess horns, but

 

Fie, 25.—Side-view of skull and mandible of existing Chevrotain (Tragulus
javanicus), from the Malayan region; reduced in size.

they agree with the giraffes, deer, and antelopes in having
lost their upper front teeth (Fig. 25). Fossil remains of the
family are exhibited in Table-case 8. Prodremotheriwm,
from the Oligocene of France, is essentially similar to the
living Tragulus, with the enlarged upper canine teeth.
Dorcatherium, of which a fine skull is shown from the Lower
Pliocene of Eppelsheim, Hesse-Darmstadt, is apparently
identical with the living Hyzmoschus.

Of the true ruminants the Tylopoda, or camels and Pier-case
llamas, seem to have originated in North America, where 13.
they can be traced back by fossils from the Pliocene and
Miocene formations to a little gazelle-shaped creature of the
Oligocene period, Poebrotheritwm. This small animal, of
which a skull and limbs are exhibited in Pier-case 13, has a
more nearly complete set of teeth than the modern camels,
and the basal bones in its feet are not entirely fused together.

D2
36 GUIDE TO TBE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

Pier-case There were no camels later than the Pliocene period in
18. North America. About that time, however, the represen-

; p 1-4, pre-
and lower molars

(Dichodon cuspidatus);

, incisors; ¢c, canine

grinding surface,

primitive Ruminant
4 1-3

nat. size.
(Table-case 8.)

ars 1-3 are shown from the

Hampshire ;

of Hordwell,
Upper premol

1-3 are shown from the same aspect below the jaw.

from the Upper Eocene
molars; m 1-3, molars.

 

Fiag.' 26.—Teeth, premaxilla, and left mandibular ramus of a

tatives of the llamas wandered over the newly emerged
Isthmus of Panama to South America, where they have
since flourished; while the true camels by some means
MAMMALIA. 37

reached Asia, as proved by numerous remains from the
Siwalik Formation of India in Pier-case 14.

The giraffes, or Giraffide, have always been Old World
quadrupeds. Though now confined to Africa, they also
ranged over the greater part of Asia and southern Europe in
the Lower Pliocene period, as shown by fossils from China,
India, and Greece in Pier-case 14. Even the long-limbed
and long-necked Giraffa itself was in existence at that time, but
it seems to have been less common than the antelope-shaped
relatives of the okapi, which has only escaped extinction by
retreating to the recesses of the Semliki forest. Samotheriwm,
with a pair of horns only in the male (Fig. 27), is known by

  

Fig. 27.—Skull and lower jaw of an extinct Okapi (Samotheriwm boissieri),
from the Lower Pliocene of the Isle of Samos; one-sixth nat. size.
(Case M.)

many remains from the Lower Pliocene of Pikermi (Greece),
the Isle of Samos, and Maragha (Persia), and it is scarcely
distinguishable from the okapi. The original skull of this
animal, described by Dr. Forsyth Major, is exhibited in a
special Case marked M. Helladotheriwm is a larger and
stouter relative, of which the female at least is hornless,
represented by numerous fragments from Pikermi. Stvathe-
rium, from the Siwalik Formation of India, is equally stout,
and the male bears two pairs of horns, one simple pair being
on the frontal bones, a large expanded pair further back
(Fig. 28). The actual skull, detached horn-cores, limb-bones,
and other remains of this animal are exhibited in Pier-case
14, while a restored model of the head is mounted on a
separate pedestal (N). Hydaspitheriwm and Bramatherium

Pier-case
14.

Case M.
Stand N.
38 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

Pier-case are contemporary genera from the Siwalik Formation of

14. .
Stand w, 2dia.

 

Fie. 28.—Front view of skull of an extinct Giraffe-like animal (Sivatherium
giganteum), from the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills, India; one-
thirteenth nat. size. (Stand N.)

Pier-case The deer, or Cervide, were as widely distributed in the
arte dere Pleistocene period as at the present day, and some of the
9,10. European species at that time possessed the largest known
Stands Q, antlers. The great Irish deer, Cervus giganteus, is especially
f remarkable in this respect, the antlers of the male often
measuring slightly more than nine feet across and exhibiting

a considerable expansion. This animal (Fig. 29) is sometimes

termed an elk, but the shape of the nose and the presence of

a brow-tyne on each antler show that it isa true deer. The

male alone bears antlers, and reconstructed skeletons of both

sexes from Irish peat-bogs are mounted on stands Q, R, in

the middle of the Gallery. Several skulls and antlers, to

show their variability, are placed on the top of the Pier-cases,

and there are also skulls with jaws in Pier-case 15. The

remains are especially common in the marl at the bottom of

the Irish peat-bogs, where the animals seem to have perished

when the present bogs were either swamps or lakes; and

there is evidence that they were not all exterminated in

Ireland until comparatively late prehistoric times. During

recent years several specimens have been dug up in the Isle

of Man, and these probably date back to the time before the

Irish Sea was formed. During the Pleistocene period numerous
MAMMALIA. 39

varieties of the species seem to have ranged over the greater Pier-case
part of Europe. Jaws from the English caverns and river-
deposits are exhibited in Table-case 10, and there is a male .
skull (lacking antlers) of the Italian race, Cervus ewryceros, Stands Q,
from Lombardy, in Pier-case 15. <A skull with incomplete

Table-cases
9, 10.

 

Fig. 29.—Skeleton of male Irish Deer (Cervus giganteus), from shell marl
beneath a peat bog, Ireland; about one-thirtieth nat. size. (Stand Q.)

antlers from Russia is mounted on the top of Pier-case 11.
The Pleistocene representatives of the common stag or red
deer, Cervus elaphus, in western Europe were sometimes of
gigantic size, as shown by fragments of antlers from Kent’s
Cavern in Table-case 10. Moderately large antlers from
river-deposits and lake-deposits in the British Isles are
40 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

Pier-case mounted in Pier-case 15 and on blocks fixed to various
oe @ pillars in the Gallery (Fig. 30). A specially fine pair of
R. 4

 

Fia. 30.—Antler of Red Deer (Cervus elaphus), one of a pair dredged from
the River Boyne at Drogheda, Ireland; one-tenth nat. size. (Pillar
between Pier-cases 16, 17.)

 

Fig. 31.—Skull and antlers of Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), from Bilney
Moor, East Dereham, Norfolk. (After Owen.)
MAMMALIA. 41

antlers from a deposit of tufa near Bakewell, Derby-
shire, is placed in a case on the top of Pier-case 16.
There are also associated remains of an extinct fallow deer
(C. browni) in Pier-case 15, and of the roebuck (Capreolus
caprea) in Table-case 10. The reindeer (Rangifer tarandus)
during the Pleistocene period wandered as far south as the
Pyrenees and Alps, and there are fine antlers (Fig. 31) from

Pier-case
15.

Table-case
10.

 

Fia. 32.—Antlers of fifth and sixth years of ‘ Cervus” tetraceros), from
the Upper Pliocene of Peyrolles, France; one-tenth nat. size. (Pier-
case 15.)

the Thames valley and other English localities in Pier-case
15. This animal is said to have survived in Caithness so
late as the twelfth century, but experiments have shown that
even when imported and allowed suitable feeding ground it
is unable to exist in that country now. The elk (Alces
machlis) also lived in Pleistocene Britain as far south as the
Thames valley (see Pier-case 15 and the pillar between

Pier-case
15.
Pier-case
15.

42 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

Pier-cases 12,13). A large extinct species, Alces latifrons,
flourished here at the beginning of the Pleistocene period, its
remains occurring with those of several extinct kinds of deer
in the Norfolk Forest Bed. The Savin Collection of antlers
of deer and elk from this deposit, near Cromer, is exhibited
in Pier-case 15.

Antlers of deer related to Cervus occur first in the Upper
Pliocene of Europe, and among them may be noted those of
the so-called Cervus tetraceros from France (Fig. 32). A series
of antlers of this animal, representing individuals of different
ages, is mounted in the upper part of Pier-case 15. It will
be noticed that the number of tynes on the antlers increases
with age, as in the common stag (Fig. 33, c, D) and in all

 

Table-case
9.

Fia. 33.—Antlers of various Deer, much reduced in size, A. Cervulus
dicranoceros ; Lower Pliocene. B. Cervus pardinensis ; Upper Plio-
cene. C, D. Cervus elaphus, second year and adult; Pleistocene and
Recent. HE. Bony pedicle and antler of existing Muntjak, Cervulus
muntjac. F. Existing Fallow Deer, Cervus dama.

other deer with elaborate antlers; but the complexity and
size of the Upper Pliocene antlers never equal those of some
of the Pleistocene antlers. The Lower Pliocene and Upper
and Middle Miocene deer-antlers are still smaller and simpler,
as shown by examples in Table-case 9 (see also Fig. 33, a).
The Lower Miocene deer, as represented by Amphitragulus
from France and Germany, are small and quite destitute of
antlers, like the living musk-deer (Moschus) of Asia. The
geological history of the antlers in the race of deer thus
MAMMALIA. 43

corresponds exactly with the life-history of the antlers in any
individual modern deer—at first there are no antlers, then
single prongs, then increasing complexity until the maximum
is reached in full maturity.

The antelopes, sheep and oxen, or Bovide, attain their
greatest development at the present day. They are essen-
tially an Old World family, and do not appear to have
reached America until the close of the Pliocene period.
The present distribution of many species, however, is quite
limited, compared with their range in the Pleistocene period.
The Saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica), now living on the
Siberian steppes, then wandered as far west as England;
and a frontlet from the Thames deposits at Twickenham is
exhibited in Pier-case 16. The European bison (Bison
bonasus), now surviving in Lithuania and the Caucasus, ranged
throughout the greater part of Europe and even to the Arctic
regions. Fine frontlets from England and various Arctic
localities are arranged in Pier-case 16. The American bison
and allied species flourished in the New World. The Musk-ox
(Ovibos moschatus), now confined to the extreme north, came
south with the reindeer as far as the Pyrenees; and there are
typical remains from the Thames Valley in Pier-case 16. The
urus (Bos primigenius), which was seen by Cesar in historic
times in the Hercynian forest, was quite common in the

 

Fia. 34.—Skull of the Urus (Bos primigenius), from the British Pleisto-
cene; one-fourteenth nat. size. (Pier-case 18.)

Pleistocene period throughout Europe (Fig. 34), Sir Antonio
Brady’s collection of the remains of this ox from Ilford,

Table-case
9.

Pier-cases
16-19.

Pier-case
16.
Pier-case
18.

Pier-case
19.

Pier-case
17.

Pier-case
16.

Pier-case

Pier-case
20.

44 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

Essex, is placed with other British specimens in Pier-case 18.
The animal seems to have become extinct in the British
Isles long before the dawn of history, and it was succeeded
by the imported Celtic short-horn (Bos longifrons), of which
numerous remains are shown in Pier-case 19. The latter
species is supposed to be the ancestor of the existing small
Welsh and Scottish cattle.

Skulls of primitive cattle collected chiefly by Colonel
Sir Proby T. Cautley in the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik
Hills, India, are exhibited in Pier-case 17. The females of
some species seem to have been hornless. Skulls of Bubalus
from the Pleistocene of the Narbada Valley, India, are also
placed in Pier-case 19. The horn-cores of one specimen
have a span of over six feet.

Goats and sheep are almost unknown among fossils, but
a few fragments are shown in Pier-case 16.

Skulls and other remains of extinct antelopes, chiefly from
the Lower Pliocene of Greece, the Isle of Samos, Persia, and
India, are arranged in Pier-case 16. Palzxoreas, Tragoceros,
and Criotherium are especially noteworthy. Among the
remains of gazelles, there is a horn-core (Gazella anglica) from
the Lower Pliocene Coralline Crag of Suffolk.

SUB-ORDER 4,—Amblypoda.

From some of the preceding observations it is evident
that most of the existing mammals can be traced back by
a series of gradations to small five-toed creatures, with an
insignificant brain-capacity, at the beginning of the Eocene
period. A few of the herbivorous mammals of the primitive
grade never advanced beyond this lowly condition, but grew
to unwieldy proportions, like those of a rhinoceros or ele-
phant. Their head became large, but the brain itself always
remained ridiculously small (Fig. 35a). Their limbs became
massive pillars, with little five-toed stumpy feet (Fig. 35s, c),
merely to support the overgrown body. They are appro-
priately named Amblypoda (“ blunt feet”) in allusion to the
latter feature. They lived only during the Eocene period,
but they seem to have been very widely distributed, their
remains having been found in Europe, Egypt, North America,
and perhaps South America.

The first described fragment of an Amblypod is a piece
of mandible named Coryphodon cocenus by Owen in 1846,
probably from the London Clay, but dredged off the Essex
MAMMALIA. 45

      
  
  

 
    
 

UN le |
Qk
oa i
Y

Fic. 35.—Outline of upper view of skull (A) to show size of brain, with
fore (B) and hind (C) feet, of an Amblypod (Coryphodon hamatus),
from the Lower Eocene of Wyoming, U.S.A.; A one-fifth, the others
one-third nat. size. (After O. C. Marsh.)

 

Fia.136.—Left upper (A) and lower (B) grinding teeth of Coryphodon
hamatus, from the Lower Hocene of Wyoming, U.S.A.; one-half nat.
size. (After O. C. Marsh.)
Pier-case
20.

46 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

coast near Harwich. It is exhibited in Pier-case 20. Other
remains of Coryphodon are known from the Lower Eocene
of England and France, and nearly complete skeletons have
been found in rocks of the same age in North America. The
grinding teeth (Fig. 36) are adapted for succulent food, and

a

(After O. C. Marsh. See Case U.)

ypod (Tinoceras ingens), from the Middle Eocene of

Wyoming, U.S.A.; one-thirtieth nat. size.

 

Fig. 37.—Skeleton of an Ambl:

the canine teeth are only slightly enlarged. All the species
are hornless, and some seem to have attained a body-length
of about six feet.

The Middle Eocene Amblypoda, hitherto discovered only
in North America, are curiously horned, and commonly
known as Dinocerata (terrible-horns). A papier maché copy
of a complete skeleton of Dinoceras (or Uintatherium)
MAMMALIA, 47

mirabile from the Bridger Formation of Wyoming, presented
by Professor O. C. Marsh, is mounted in a special Case
marked U. A plaster cast of a skull of Tinoceras ingens
(Fig. 37) is placed beneath it; and a series of brain-casts
to show the relatively small size of its brain is arranged in
front. The skull bears three pairs of bony prominences,
which increase in size backwards, and seem to have been
covered merely with skin. These bony horns and the brain-
case are almost solid, with very few cavities. The upper
canine teeth are much enlarged, and are protected by long
flanges depending from the mandible.

 

a

Fic. 38.—Skull and lower jaw of Arsinoitherium zitteli, from the Upper
Eocene of the Fayum, Egypt; one-twelfth nat. size. (Case 8.)

Pier-case
20

Case U.

Arsinoitherium and its allies from the Upper Eocene of ExsE cane

the Fayum, Egypt, are technically Amblypoda, but their
precise affinities are still uncertain. A unique skull and
mandible (Fig. 38) is mounted in a special Case marked S,

Case 8.
Pier-case
20.

Case U.

Pier-case
20.

Pier-case
20.

Pier-cases
20, 21.
Table-case
11.

48 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

and numerous remains are arranged in Pier-case 22. The
brain is somewhat better developed than in the Dinocerata,
and the teeth are deepened for the effective grinding of dry
vegetation, while the canine teeth are quite small and crowded
between the continuous regular series of premolars and
incisors. There is one pair of small bony horn-cores above
the eye, and there is an immense pair of horn-cores in front,
which seem to be the excessively enlarged nasal bones.
These horn-cores, like the rest of the large skull, are formed
by a mere hollow shell of bone, and the grooves for blood-
vessels in their surface suggest that they were originally
covered with a sheath of true horn.

SUB-ORDER 5.—Hyracoidea.

The small existing hyraxes of Africa, Arabia, and Syria,
are the scarcely altered survivors of a group of Eocene
hoofed mammals allied to the Amblypoda and Condylarthra.
They seem to have originated in the African region, and jaws
of one hyracoid (Megalohyrax eocenus), as large as a donkey,
are shown from the Upper Eocene of the Fayum, Egypt
(Pier-case 20). Pliohyrax, from the Lower Pliocene of
Pikermi (Greece), the Isle of Samos, and Maragha (Persia),
must have been equally large. Several fossil hoofed animals
found in the Tertiary rocks of South America have been
doubtfully associated with this sub-order.

SUB-ORDER 6.—Condylarthra,

These are the small primitive five-toed hoofed animals
of the Eocene period, which might serve very well for the
ancestors of all later Ungulata. They occur both in Europe
and North America, but the most satisfactory specimens
have been found in the latter country. Phenacodus (Figs.
39, 40), of which a plaster cast of a nearly complete skeleton
is exhibited in Pier-case 9, is a typical example. Fragments
of jaws of Condylarthra are also shown in Pier-case 20.

SuB-oRDERS 7~9.—Typotheria, Toxodontia, and
Litopterna.

South America seems to have been separated from the
rest of the world during the greater part of the Tertiary
period, and its indigenous hoofed mammals, commonly
(‘6 esvo-aelg) “OzIS “yBU YYWeAeS-ot0 ynoge SWS" Q ‘SupuLos
JO eUs00q] JoMOr] ON} TOIT (snawud snpoovuey) TEAUIB, poyooy eatytuntid v Jo MOJeTOYS— 6s “OLA

S Ss SNS XS SS Sa, ee & |

SX oops YX Ree WK
SS EX we Jo

S ; : f S SS&s \

S SS \ S. S \ I

Sx ay . \

      

YY \ :

|

WML i: AL ill LL LLL,
Ki, iy, Vis
oa EEX Wy

 

 

 
Pier-cases
20, 21.
Table-case
11.

Pier-case
20.

50 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

arranged in three sub-orders, are nearly all different from
any found elsewhere. The South American llamas, deer,
peccaries, tapirs, extinct horses and mastodons, of course, are
not indigenous, but passed south over the newly emerged
isthmus of Panama or other land-bridge at the beginning of
the Pliocene period.

Some of the earliest known South American hoofed
mamumals, such as Pyrotheriwm, are very little different from
the Amblypoda and Condylarthra of the northern hemisphere.
Plaster casts of jaws, teeth, and feet of Pyrotherium from
Patagonia are exhibited in Pier-case 20. The later forms,
however, are peculiar in the folding and complication of
their often persistently-growing teeth; also in the structure

 

 

 

 

 

Pier-case
20.

Case T,

Fic. 40.—Skeleton of Phenacodus primevus, as now mounted in the
American Museum of Natural History, New York.

of their feet when they begin to become plain-dwellers and

mimic the rhinoceroses and horses of the rest of the world.
Toxodon (Fig. 41) is an especially remarkable beast with
ever-growing powerful cutting and grinding teeth, well seen
in actual specimens in Pier-case 20. A plaster cast of a
reconstructed skeleton of this large animal from the Pampa
of the Argentine Republic, now in the La Plata Museum, is
mounted in a special Case marked T. When alive it must
have been shaped much like the contemporaneous rodents
and giant armadillos. It was preceded in time by Nesodon
and other smaller kinds of which remains are shown in
Table-case 11. Macrauchenia, also from the Pampa Forma-
tion, was a large animal shaped liked a llama, but with three

 
51

MAMMALIA.

M4 ‘
oS
ag 8
a2 Oo
Ay
om
“4
aS an
oe
aS
Ee
e
s
oe
a
Zs
Sw
38
aS
2
a
q
>

lower end of the ulna and fibula has

separate toes on each foot.

(1 eseg) ‘ozts ‘yeu 431100} q8te-eu0
‘olqndey ounuesiy ‘sorry soueng jo uoyentiog edmeg oy UI0I13 ‘seswaqnpd Uopowo,, Jo 090] S—' TPF ‘OLA

 
mablesane

Wall-cases
28, 43.
Pier-eases
29-42,
Table-cases
17-24.

Pier-case
29 (30).

52 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

the case in all Ungulata with similar feet living in the
northern hemisphere. Some of the small Proterotheriida,
which are found in the Santa Cruz Formation (perhaps
Miocene) of Patagonia, have the toes reduced to one on each
foot, exactly as in the horses; but here again the ulna and
fibula are complete. They are named Litopterna (“ smooth-
heel”) because the calcaneum is provided with a smooth
facette for articulation with the end of the fibula) In
outward appearance they must have been much like pigmy
horses.

SuB-ORDER 10.—Proboscidea.

The elephants at the present day are found only in Africa
and the Indian region, but during the Pleistocene period they
ranged over nearly the whole of the northern hemisphere,
roaming even within the Arctic circle. The mammoth
(Elephas primigenius), which was almost identical with the
living Indian elephant, had the widest distribution, its
remains being especially abundant in the frozen Arctic
lands and occurring almost everywhere in the north temperate
region. There were local variations of the species; and
among other features it may be noticed that the grinding
teeth from the north exhibit finer and closer triturating
plates than do those from the south, both in the Old
World and in America, where the extreme southern forms
are known as F#. armeniacus and £. columbi or texanus
respectively. No mammoths, however, were larger than the
modern Indian elephant, and they can only be said to have
commonly exceeded this living species in the development
of their stout curly tusks, of which several fine examples
(one from Eschscholtz Bay measuring 12 ft. 6 in. along the
curve) are shown in Pier-case 29 (30) and on the top of this
and adjacent Pier-cases. These tusks are so common and so
well preserved in some parts of the Arctic regions, that they
are a valuable source of ivory and have long been collected
as an article of commerce. The mammoth is, indeed, best
known from discoveries within the Arctic circle, where not
only the fresh bones and teeth but also whole carcases are
occasionally met with in the frozen earth. One such carcase
was made known to science a century ago by Adams, who
found it at the mouth of the Lena and brought the greater
part of the skeleton, with the head and feet still covered by
the skin and soft parts, to St. Petersburg in 1806. Photo-
graphs of this skeleton, as it is now mounted with some
MAMMALIA. 53

restoration in the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Peters- Pier-cases
burg, are placed on the wall adjoining Pier-case 30 (see also 29 31.
Fig. 42). Another carcase of a small, young male, exposed

by a landslip on the banks of the Beresowka, an affluent of

, Siberia, and now in the

with remains of dried skin on head and
Zoological Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg.

(Elephas primigenius),

th near the mouth of the river Lena.

feet, discovered in frozen ear

 

Fic. 42.—Skeleton of Mammoth

the Kolyma, in the government of Jakutsk, was scientifically
excavated by an expedition from the St. Petersburg Academy
in 1902; and photographs of the specimen, taken by Dr.
Herz during the progress of its disinterment, are placed with
Pier-cases
29,'31.

Pier-case
31.

Pier-case
32.

Case K.

Table-cases
17, 17a.

Table-cases
18, 19.

o4 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

explanatory sketches on the pillar between Pier-cases 31
and 32. This animal evidently fell into a hole when quietly
browsing on grass; its sprawling attitude shows that it
attempted to scramble out; a great amount of clotted blood
found in the chest-cavity indicates that it burst a blood-
vessel by over-exertion; and a mouthful of grass between
the teeth, not yet swallowed, proves that death was quite
sudden.. This specimen has been skilfully preserved in the
Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg, the skin
being partially restored and stuffed in the attitude of the
death-struggle, the skeleton mounted separately, and the
other soft parts placed in bottles. As proved by this and
other discoveries, the Arctic mammoth was well clothed in
reddish-brown wool and long black hair, while the tail was
tipped by a large tassel of hair. A piece of the woolly skin
and a bottle filled with the long hair are exhibited with the
collection of remarkably fresh bones of the mammoth from
the Arctic regions in Pier-case 31. Jaws, teeth and bones
from the Thames valley, including Sir Antonio Brady’s
remarkable collection from Ilford, are arranged in Pier-
case 32 and the adjacent Table-case 17; while the finest
skull of a mammoth (with complete tusks 10 ft. 6 in. in
length) hitherto discovered in Britain, is mounted in a special
Case marked K in the middle of the Gallery. This specimen
was also found ina brickfield at [Jford, and seems to have
been associated with a whole skeleton, which was unfortu-
nately dug out in pieces and sold by the workmen to a local
rag and bone merchant before the interest of the discovery
was recognised. In the English collection there is evidence
of mammoths of all ages, and an instructive series of teeth
of young individuals is placed in Table-case 17a. The
specimens of greatest geological antiquity are the molars in
Table-case 17 obtained by Mr. A. C. Savin from the Norfolk
Forest Bed. Molars from numerous localities in England
and on the Continent are arranged in Table-case 18 to
illustrate distribution and variation; and a series dredged
from the bed of the North Sea (chiefly the Owles Collection)
is placed in Table-case 19 (Figs. 43, 44). Molars of the
southern race from the Old World and North America,
named Hlephas armeniacus and £. columbi, are exhibited in
Table-case 17.

The Pleistocene allies of the existing African elephant
had a less extensive geographical distribution than the
mammoth, and they never ranged sufficiently far north to
MAMMALIA. 5d

pass into the New World. The best known species is Table-cases
Hlephas antiquus, with narrow molar teeth (Fig. 45) and 18, 18.
straight tusks, which has not been found farther north than

 

Fic. 43.—Grinding surface of left last upper molar tooth of Mammoth
(Elephas primigenius), dredged off the Dogger Bank, North Sea, one
quarter nat. size. (Table-case 19.)

 

Fic. 44.—Mandible of Mammoth (Elephas primigenius), dredged off the
Dogger Bank, North Sea; one-sixth nat. size. (Pier-case 32.)

the Kirkdale Cave in the Vale of Pickering, Yorkshire. The Pier-case
teeth are less common in Europe than those of the mammoth, ae:
but a good English collection is exhibited in Pier-case 33,

and the series includes a characteristic straight tusk. The
Pier-case

Table-cases
19a, 21,
21a.

Table-case

56 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

most ancient specimens were obtained from the Norfolk
Forest Bed and from the Pliocene Norwich Crag. Molars of
young individuals, chiefly found in England, are arranged
in Table-case 194. Teeth intermediate between those of
E. antiquus and E. africanus occur in northern Africa, and
there are remains of dwarf races in the caverns of Malta,
Sicily, and Cyprus. The pigmy elephants of Malta (ZL. meli-
tensis and #£. mnaidriensis) and Cyprus (£. cypriotes) are
especially interesting, and must have varied from three to
seven feet in height when full-grown. A large collection of
their remains is exhibited in Table-cases 21, 214, those from
Malta having been collected by Admiral Spratt and Professor
Leith Adams, those from Cyprus by Miss D. M. A. Bate.
There are also a few jaws and teeth of the Sicilian forms in
Table-case 21. It is commonly supposed that these animals
were stranded on the islands where the remains are found

 

Fic. 45.—Grinding surface of right second lower molar tooth of Hlephas
antiquus, from the Pleistocene of Grays, Essex; one-third nat. size.
(Pier-case 33.)

when the Mediterranean assumed its present extent in the
Pleistocene period and disintegrated the once continuous
mainland. Their small size and innumerable variations are
thus ascribed to the struggle for existence on a reduced and
unfavourable feeding ground.

The largest known elephant, apparently allied to the
surviving African species, lived during the Upper Pliocene
period to the dawn of the Pleistocene in the southern half of
Europe. It was first discovered in the valley of the Arno,
Italy, and named Elephas meridionalis, A nearly complete
skeleton from Durfort, Gard, France, now mounted in the
Paris Museum, shows that the animal must sometimes have
measured 14 or 15 feet in height. Molar teeth (Fig. 46) and
other remains occur in the Norfolk Forest Bed, and a good
collection is exhibited with some Italian specimens in Table-
case 20. A few pieces are also shown from the Pliocene Red
MAMMALIA. 57

Crag and Norwich Crag, and there is one molar from a fissure {Table-case

in the Chalk at Dewlish, Dorset. Photographs of the cireum-
stances under which the latter specimen was discovered are
fixed on the wall in the bay between Pier-cases 34, 35.

Remains of true elephants are quite common in the
Lower Pliocene Siwalik Formation and in the Pleistocene
river-deposits of India. All of these are closely related to
the living Indian elephant, but some, such as #. planifrons
and #. hysudricus, seem to be intermediate between the
surviving Indian and African species. The Cautley Collection
and numerous other specimens in Pier-cases 33 and 34, Table-
case 22, and on special stands, form a unique illustration of
these extinct members of the Indian fauna.

 

Fic, 46.—Grinding surface of upper molar tooth of Hlephas meridionalis,
from the Upper Pliocene of Tuscany; one-third nat. size. (Table-
case| 20.)

The Indian species just mentioned are the earliest known
examples of the true elephant, which thus makes its first
appearance in the Lower Pliocene of Asia. With the typical
kinds are associated other elephants which possess more
primitive grinding teeth, and show how the elephantine
molar originated. They prove, in fact, that this ponderous
tooth has gradually arisen in the elephant tribe by the
enlargement and complication of a tooth with a few cross-
ridges. The first stage (among elephants with a normal
proboscis or trunk) is found in Mastodon (“nipple-tooth”),
which is represented by M. sivalensis (Fig. 50) and other
species in the Siwalik Formation (see Pier-cases 36, 37, and
Table-case 23). A longitudinal vertical section of this kind
of tooth (Fig. 47) displays the thick cross-ridges separated
by wide valleys, which are quite empty or only partially
blocked by small supplementary knobs or ridges. The next
stage, named Stegodon (“roof-tooth”) in allusion to the

Pier-cases

>

Table-case

Stands oO,
P, W.

Pier-cases
36, 37.
Table-case
23.
58 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

 

Fic. 47,.—Vertical longitudinal section of molar tooth of Mastodon, showing
open valleys between cross-ridges, thick enamel (0), and the dentine
(c); two-thirds nat. size. (Table-case 24.)

 

Fic. 48.—Vertical longitudinal section of molar tooth of Elephas (Stegodon)
insignis, from the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills, India, showing
wide valleys between cross-ridges filled with cement (a), the layer of
enamel (b), and the dentine (c); one-third nat. size. (Table-case 24.)

 

Fre. 49.—Vertical longitudinal section of molar tooth of Elephas plani-
frons, from the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills, India, showing
deep valleys between cross-ridges filled with cement (a), the layer of
enamel (b), and the dentine (c); one-third nat. size. (Table-case 24.)
 

Fic. 50.—Grinding surface of lower molar tooth of Mastodon sivalensis
from the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills, India; two-thirds nat-
size. (Table-case 23.)

 

Fic. 51.—Grinding surface of upper molar tooth of Hlephas (Stegodon)
clifti, from the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills, India; one-half
nat. size. Pier-case 36.)

 

Fic. 52.—Grinding surface of incomplete upper molar tooth of Elephas
planifrons, from the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills, India; two-
thirds nat. size. (Pier-case 34.)
Pier-cases
36, 37.
‘Table-case
23.

Pier-cases
35, 36.
Stand J.

Table-case

Pier-case
37.

Table-case

Pier-case
88.

Table-cases
23, 24.
{Stand B.

60 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

angular roof-like shape of the cross-ridges of the teeth (Figs.
48, 51), has these ridges more numerous and usually deeper,
while the intervening valleys are partly filled with a soft
tooth-substance termed cement. Stegodon is generally re-
garded as a sub-genus or section of Elephas proper, and
various remains of it from India, Burma, and China are
exhibited in Pier-cases 35, 36. A fine skull of Hlephas
(Stegodon) ganesa with immense tusks (Fig. 59) from the
Siwalik Formation, presented by General Sir W. E. Baker,
is mounted on a separate stand (J). In the true Hlephas
the tocth-ridges are excessively deepened and comparatively
numerous (Figs. 49, 52), while the intervening valleys, now
mere crevices, are filled to overflowing with cement. This
progressive complication is well illustrated by a series of
sections of teeth arranged in regular order in Table-case 24.
The Pliocene Stegodon has only been found in southern
and central Asia, some of the adjacent islands, and northern
Africa. Mastodon, however, ranged over southern and central
Europe, and in the Pleistocene period extended nearly
throughout North and South America. Among European
species may be mentioned M. arvernensis, from the Upper
Pliocene of France, Italy, Germany, and the Red Crag of
England, illustrated in Pier-case 37
and Table-case 23; also M. atticus and
M. pentelici from the Lower Pliocene
of Greece, exhibited in the same
Cases. Among North American species
M. americanus (Figs. 53, 54) is the
most important, and is represented
not only by the partially recon-
structed skeleton (Stand B) at the
entrance to the Gallery, but also by
numerous remains in Pier-case 38
and Table-case 23. It lived until the
arrival of prehistoric man in North
Fic. 58.—Lower molar America, as shown by the occurrence
tooth of Mastodon ameri- of stone arrow-heads with its bones,
canus, from the eisto- The best known South American
one-third nat. size, Species is M. hwmboldti, of which a
(Table-case 23.) fine skull is mounted in Pier-case 39
(40). Though found nearly all over
South America, its remains are especially abundant in the
lake deposits or flood deposits in the valley of Tarija, Bolivia,
where large herds must have perished.

 
MAMMALIA. 61

The Pliocene and Pleistocene mastodons just enumerated Pier-cases
clearly possessed the ordinary elephant proboscis, and would ,,,38-42
be elephants to all outward appearance. Young individuals, °98, 24
however, exhibit a diminutive pair of tusks projecting from Stand B.
the front of the lower jaw. They are thus reminiscent of
their predecessors of the Miocene period in Europe and
northern Africa, which had well-developed and functional
lower tusks throughout life. These ancestral mastodons, of
the genus Tetrabelodon, are illustrated by numerous remains
from the Middle and Upper Miocene and Lower Pliocene of

 

Fic. 54.—Skeleton of Mastodon americanus, from the Pleistocene of
Benton County,'Missouri, U.S.A.; greatly reduced. (Stand B.)!

Europe in Pier-case 41 (42). None of the species were so Pier-case!
large as those of the genus Mastodon itself. Their skull 41.;
(Fig. 60) is quite like that of an elephant, and the spreading

upper tusks only differ from modern elephant tusks in being

provided with a band of enamel along one side. Their

lower jaw, however, is produced at the chin (symphysis) into

a remarkable bony spout-shaped elongation, tipped with a

pair of chisel-shaped tusks, which cannot have worked against

the upper tusks, but evidently met some kind of pad on the

palate. Tetrabelodon must thus have possessed an immensely
Pier-case

Wall-case
43.

Case Cc.

62 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

elongated face, and as its neck was longer than that of a
modern elephant, it would be able to reach the ground with
the front of its mouth. The general shape of the animal is
well shown by a partially restored skeleton in the Paris
Museum, of which a photograph is placed on the wall near
Pier-case 41 (see also Fig. 55).

 

Fic. 55.—Skeleton of Tetrabelodon angustidens, from the Middle Miocene
of Sansan, France; greatly reduced. (After A. Gaudry.)

 

Fic. 56.—Left upper milk-molars of Tetrabelodon longirostris, from the
Lower Pliocene of Eppelsheim, Hesse-Darmstadt; nat. size. (After
A. Gaudry.)

Dinotherium, a contemporary of Tetrabelodon, with smaller,
simpler and more numerous grinding teeth, has the bony
symphysis of its mandible bent downwards and the terminal
lower tusks curved backwards. The only known skull of
this animal, with a plaster cast of the mandible (Fig. 57)
from the Lower Pliocene of Eppelsheim, Hesse-Darmstadt,
is mounted in a special Case marked C; and teeth (Fig. 58)
MAMMALIA. 63

and other remains both from Europe and the Siwalik Wall-case
Formation of India, are exhibited in Table-case 23 and .

Case C.
Wall-case 43.

 

Fic. 57.—Skull and mandible of Dinotherium giganteum, from the Lower
Pliocene of Eppelsheim, Hesse-Darmstadt; one-fifteenth nat. size.
(Case C.)

 

Fie. 58.—Lett upper teeth of Dinotherium giganteum, from the Middle
Miocene of Sansan, France ; one-quarter nat. size, (After A, Gaudry.)

No Proboscidean earlier than Letrabelodon occurs in Wall-case
Europe; but it is preceded in the Upper Eocene of Egypt by 43,
64 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

Wall-case a still smaller animal, Palwomastodon, of which various
remains are exhibited in Wall-case 43. This genus (Fig. 61)

 

Fig. 59.—Skull and lower jaw of Hlephas (Stegodon) ganesa. showing immense
tusks, from the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills, India; one thirty-
second nat. size. (Stand J.)

ff

nar : Kan MU, ;
u 4) yp 4

   

Fic. 60.—Skull and lower jaw of Tetrabelodon angustidens, showing
elongated chin with pair of terminal cutting teeth (J.i.), from the
Middle Miocene of Sansan, France; one-twentieth nat. size. nar.
position of nostrils; w.i. upper incisor or tusk. (After ©. W.
Andrews.)

resembles Tetrabelodon in its tusks and elongated face, but
differs in having a less elephant-like skull, with more
numerous and relatively smaller grinding teeth. It is
MAMMALIA. 65

preceded again in the Middle Eocene of Egypt by Moeri- Wall-case
therium (Fig. 62), which comprises still smaller species
whose relation to Elephas would hardly be suspected if all
the intermediate gradations were unknown. Here the cross-

 
 

Fig. 61.—Skull and lower jaw of Paleomastodon beadnelli, showing
elongated chin with pair of terminal cutting teeth (J.i.), from the
Upper Eocene of the Fayum, Egypt; one-twelfth nat. size. nar.
position of nostrils; w.i. upper incisor or tusk. (After ©. W.
Andrews.)

Fic. 62.—Skull and lower jaw of Mocritherium lyonsi, from the Middle
Eocene of the Fayum, Egypt; one-seventh nat. size. ant orb.,
antorbital foramen; c., canine; ex. oc., exoccipital ; fr., frontal; 2. 1-3,
incisors; ju., jugal; m. 1-3, molars; ma., maxilla; n., nasal; p.a.,
parietal; par. oc., paroccipital; p.m. 2-4, premolars; p. mzx., pre-
maxilla; pt., post-tympanic process of squamosal; s.oc., supra-
occipital: sq., squamosal. (After C. W. Andrews.)

ridged molars are first becoming recognisable; one pair of
incisors above and below is growing at the expense of its
fellows to become real tusks; and the arrangement of the
bones of the skul] is beginning to show features which are

known only in the order Proboscidea. Several instructive
F
Wall-case
43.

Table-case
16.

66 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

fragments, and plaster casts of skulls from the Cairo Museum,
are placed in Pier-case 43.

The fossils, so far as known, show therefore that the
earliest forerunners of the elephants were small marsh-
dwellers which lived on a succulent food in the African
region. They gradually increased in size, without essentially
altering their limbs and body; but as their legs lengthened
and their neck shortened, their face and chin gradually
became elongated to reach the ground for browsing. When
this strange adaptation had reached its maximum degree, the
chin suddenly shrivelled, leaving the flexible, toothless face
without any support. Thus arose the uniqué proboscis of the
elephants, which has become prehensile by stages which
cannot be traced, because soft parts are not preserved in
ordinary geological formations.

For comparison, a stuffed modern Indian elephant, and a
skeleton of the same are placed in the middle of the Gallery
(stands D, E); while the head of an African elephant, skulls
and tusks are arranged in the bay between Pier-cases 36
and 37. Recent skulls and teeth, some described by Corse
in the “ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society”
more than a century ago, are also placed in Pier-case 28.

OrpER VI.—RODENTIA.

Fossil remains of rodents or gnawing mammals are common
in Tertiary formations throughout the world, and a typical
collection is exhibited in Table-case 16. The extinct kinds,
however, do not differ much from those now living, although
they can be traced back as far as the Middle Eocene period.

Among the fossil remains of Sciuromorpha, those of the
beaver (Castor) are conspicuous. This animal first appears
in the Upper Pliocene of Italy, France, and England ; and
the common C. fiber had a remarkably wide range in Europe
during the Pleistocene period. Good specimens are shown
from the Fen-land (Fig. 63) and from the valley of the Lea,
Essex. It does not appear to have been exterminated in
Britain until about the twelfth century, and there are still
allusions to it in some names of places (e.g., Beverley and
Nant-yr-afancwm). Trogontherium cuviert is a giant beaver,
which ranged from Russia to England during early Pleistocene
times. A skull, jaws, and other remains from the Norfolk
Forest Bed are exhibited, with plaster casts of a Russian
skull and mandible of the same species.
MAMMALIA. 67

Among Myomorpha, it is interesting to notice that the
lemmings (Myodes lemmus and Cuniculus torquatus) occur in
the Pleistocene of England. There are also remains of a
large dormouse (Leithia melitensis) found with the pigmy
elephants in the caverns of Malta.

   

Fic. 63.—Left upper (A) and right lower (B) teeth of Beaver (Castor fiber),
from the Fens of Cambridgeshire; nat. size.

Among Hystricomorpha, a skull of the gigantic Castoroides
ohwoticus from the Pleistocene of North America is shown ;
and there is a drawing of a complete skeleton of this animal,
natural size, on the adjacent wall. There are also remains
of various genera from South America, where the extinct
Pleistocene Megamys (not represented in the collection) must
have been as large as an ox.

The Lagomorpha, or rabbits, picas, and hares, date back
to the Oligocene period.

OrDER VIJ.—SIRENIA.

The extinct representatives of the “sea-cows,” so far as
known, are very little different from the surviving members
of the Order. Recent discoveries in Egypt merely suggest
that during the Eocene period they were most closely con-
nected with the early Proboscidean Ungulata. Various fossils
show that in Tertiary times they had a wider geographical
distribution than at the present day.

Steller’s Sea-cow (Rhytina gigas), which formerly browsed
on the sea-weed on the shores of Bering Strait, lived until
1782, when it was exterminated by the Russian sailors who

F 2

Table-case
16.

Pier-case
29 (30).
Case V.
68 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

Pier-case fed upon its flesh. It was described by Steller, a German
naturalist in the Russian service in 1751, and a copy of his

29 (30).
Case V.

Pier-case
29 (80).

 

S

as
Ca

5 a
ytd he!
loge Sas

ess

eek

vere

pasceaia

(Case V.)

Fic. 64.—Skeleton of Stoller’s Sea-cow (Rhytina gigas), from Pleistocene of Bering Island;
one-fortieth nat. size.

drawing of the living animal is
fixed on the Pillar between Pier-
cases 20 and 21. This massive
creature sometimes attained a length
of 25 feet; and a nearly complete
skeleton of an individual about
20 feet long (Fig. 64) is mounted,
with other remains, in a large case
marked V. Rhytina was destitute of
teeth, which were replaced by cor-
rugated, horny plates; it also appears
to have lacked ordinary hands. Its
bones occur in the peat-bogs and
swamps of the islands round which
it lived, and they are discovered by
prodding the soft ground with an
iron bar which strikes them.

Halitherium from the Oligocene
and Lower Miocene of Europe, is
essentially a manatee, but it lacks
the apparently unlimited supply of
grinding teeth which characterise
the surviving animal. It also
exhibits a less rudimentary pelvis
than any other known Sirenian,
with a small bone representing
the femur. A restored model of
a skeleton of Halitherium schinzi
about 8 feet long (Fig. 65) from
the Oligocene of Hesse-Darmstadt,
is mounted in Case V; and there
are numerous actual remains of this
species from the same locality in
the collection. There is also an
imperfect skull, named Halithertum
canhami, from the Red Crag of
Suffolk (see Table-case 14.). Felsi-
notheriwm is a closely similar animal
from Northern Italy.

Prorastomus is another extinct
genus known only with certainty
by the unique skull from an early
MAMMALIA. 69

Tertiary limestone in Jamaica, which is exhibited in Pier-
case 29 (30). It is peculiar in possessing a complete set of
teeth, incisors and canines as well as premolars and molars.
Fragments of jaws, possibly of another species of the same
genus, occur in the Upper Eocene of Northern Italy.

Pier-case
29 (80).

 

Fic. 65.—Skeleton of Halitheriwm schinzi, from the Oligocene of Hesse-
Darmstadt; one twenty-fifth nat. size. (Case V.)

The oldest known Sirenians are Hotherium and Hosiren
from the Middle Eocene of Egypt. Brain-casts, a plaster
cast of a skull, and other remains are exhibited in Pier-case
29 (80).

Skeletons and stuffed specimens of the living manatees
and dugongs are placed in Case V and Pier-case 29 (30) for
comparison with the fossils. See “Guide to the Galleries
of Mammals,” p. 84.

OrpvER VIII.—CETACEA.

The fossil remains of whales, porpoises, and dolphins are
placed with the living members of the Order in the Gallery
of Cetacea (Department of Zoology). They are all very
fragmentary.

The typical modern Balenidz do not occur below the
Pliocene, where they are represented chiefly by ear-bones
(tympanics), of which a good series from the Red Crag of
Suffolk is exhibited (Fig. 66). Small whalebone whales,
however, existed so long ago as the Oligocene period both in
Europe and North America, although there are no remains in
the collection.

Teeth and bones of the toothed whales are more fre-
quently met with among fossils. All the kinds which still
live seem to have been in existence before the close of the
Pliocene period. Even the strange compact snouts of the
beaked whales, such as Mesoplodon, are common fossils in
the Pliocene Crag of England and Belgium, and a good
collection is mounted for exhibition. Some of the earlier

Gallery of
Cetacea,
Zool. Dept.
70 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

Gallery of toothed whales of the Miocene period differed from every

Cetacea,
Zool. Dept.

Cetacean now living, and approached more normal mammals
in the circumstance, that all their teeth were enamelled,
while some of those at the back of the jaw were two-rooted.
Instructive illustrations may be seen in plaster casts of skulls
of Sgqualodon grateloupi from the Miocene of France and

 

Fic. 66.—Tympanic bone of Whalebone-whale (Balezna primigenia), from
the Red Crag of Suffolk; one-half nat. size.

 

Fia. 67.—Skull (A) and upper molar tooth (B) of Zeuglodon
cetoides, from the Eocene of Alabama, U.S.A.; A greatly
reduced, B one-fifth nat. size.

 

Bavaria, and in an almost unique skull of Prosqualodon
australis from the Patagonian Formation of South America.
The Miocene toothed-whales with enamelled two-rooted
teeth are especially interesting, because they connect the
modern simple-toothed tribes with some whale-like creatures,
the Zeuglodonts, which appear to have flourished in the seas
MAMMALIA. 71

throughout the world during the Eocene period. Zeuglodon
(yoke-tooth), thus named by Owen in allusion to the shape
of its hinder teeth (Fig. 678), has jaws so peculiar that they
were originally supposed to belong to a reptile, which was
termed Basilosaurus. The skull (Fig. 67a) is not completely
that of a whale, though it is elongated and depressed, with
the nostril on the middle of the upper surface. Each side of
either jaw is provided with four simple teeth in front and
five double-rooted teeth behind. The neck must have been
unusually long for a whale and not rigid. There are also
traces of an armour of small bony plates. Plaster casts of
the skull and teeth, besides actual teeth of the typical
Zeuglodon cetoides, from the Eocene of Alabama, U.S.A., are
exhibited, proving the animal to have been of rather large

size. A plaster cast of part of a skull of Z. osiris from Egypt
is also shown.

Orper IX.—EDENTATA.

The sloths, anteaters, and armadillos have been cha-
racteristic of the South American region since early Tertiary
times, and they do not appear to have wandered farther than
the southern part of North America at any period. They are
quite a degenerate and insignificant race at the present day,
compared with their former representatives.

The modern sloths and anteaters are almost unknown
among fossils, but the peculiarities of both these families are
combined in the skeleton of the extinct ground-sloths.
These animals, in fact, exhibit the head and teeth of a sloth
associated with the back-bone, limbs, and tail of an anteater.
They lived in great numbers in South America during the
latter part of the Tertiary period, ranging even so far north
as Kentucky in the Pleistocene ; and some of them survived
to be contemporaries of man at a very recent Prehistoric
date. The Miocene or perhaps Upper Eocene forms are quite
small, but they become larger as they are traced upwards
in the geological sequence, and many of the Pleistocene
and Prehistoric species rival elephants and rhinoceroses in
bulk.

The best known ground-sloths are Megatheriwm, Scelido-
therium, and Mylodon, all well represented in the collection.
They obviously could not live in trees like the little sloths
which exist at present in the South American forests ; but
their hind quarters are very massive and their stout tail
would serve with their hind legs to form a rigid tripod on

Gallery of
Cetacea,
Zool. Dept.

Wall-case
26.
Table-case

14b, 15a.
Case Y.
GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

72

ey could rest when reaching the leaves of trees for
food. A plaster cast of the skeleton of Megatherium, 18 feet

Stand X. which th

Case Y.

   

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cy

 

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ys

    

 

        

long, and a slightly restored actual: skeleton of Mylodon,
somewhat smaller, are mounted on stands marked X, Y, in

the attitude which it is believed they usually assumed when
MAMMALIA. 73

feeding. The original bones and teeth of Megatherium, other Stand X.
remains of Mylodon, and numerous parts of the skeleton of Case ¥-
Scelidotherium (Fig. 68) are arranged in Wall-case 26. The
bones bear conspicuous crests and ridges, which indicate the
muscular power of these animals. The feet are twisted,
so that their side rather than their palm would be used when
walking; and one, two, or three of the toes on each foot
terminate in a great claw. The fore quarters are arranged
for the easy motion of the grasping arms. The front of the
mandible is spout-shaped (see Figs. 68, 69), evidently adapted
to a long protrusible tongue, which could be used like that
of a giraffe for pulling leaves off the trees. The few grinding
teeth would continually grow as they were worn down
throughout life, and those of Megatherium (Fig. 69) are made Stand X.

 

sor

Fic. 69.—Lower jaw of Megatherium americanum, showing double-
ridged molar tecth and long spout-shaped symphysis (d), from the
Pampa Formation of Buenos Aires, Argentine Republic; one-eighth
nat. size. (Wall-case 26.)

extremely powerful by consisting of alternate soft and hard
plates of tooth-substance, which produce cross-ridges on the
crown.

The skeletons of the ground-sloths are wonderfully well
preserved in the Pampa Formation of the Argentine
Republic, and it is the rule rather than the exception to find
them whole. Most of them are discovered on the borders
of old lakes and rivers, evidently in the position in which
the animals suddenly died. They are supposed to have
perished in the mud and soft ground when attempting to
reach the water to drink during dry seasons ; for droughts
are common even at the present day in the country where
they formerly lived. In the time of the ground-sloths,
however, the pampa can scarcely have been the bare plain
that it is now ; it must have borne forest vegetation.

Both human bones and stone implements have occasionally wage ae

a.
Table-case
15a.

Wall-case
26.

74. GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

been found in the province of Buenos Aires so intimately
associated with remains of the ground-sloths that there can
be no doubt as to the survival of these gigantic quadrupeds
until the time of man at least in the southern part of South
America. The most important discoveries, however, which
appear to prove this survival, were made in 1897 and
subsequent years by Dr. F. P. Moreno, Dr. R. Hauthal, Baron
Erland Nordenskjéld, and others, in a cavern near Consuelo
Cove, Last Hope Inlet, Patagonia, between the 51st and
52nd degrees of south latitude. Here, in an absolutely dry
and powdery deposit on the floor of the large cavern, were
found numerous broken bones of several individuals of a
ground-sloth, Grypotherium, which was nearly as large as
Mylodon and only differed from the latter in minor features.
With the bones were several pieces of skin, evidently of the
same animal, which showed marks of tools and seemed to
have been stripped off the carcase by man. There were also
large lumps of excrement, besides masses of cut grass which
may have been intended for fodder. With the Grypotherium
were found bones of other extinct animals; and in the same
cavern there were implements of stone and bone, remains
of fires, and even the bones of man himself. The Argentine
explorers, in fact, concluded that the Grypotherium had
actually been kept in the cavern and fed by man, who
eventually killed the animals for food.

A series of specimens illustrating this discovery is
exhibited in Table-case 154. The sharply broken bones are
remarkably fresh in appearance, still bearing the dried and
shrivelled remains of gristle, simews and flesh. The pieces
of skin (Plate IV) are covered with dense, coarse hair on
the outside; while the inner layer of their substance is filled
with small nodules of bone, which are exposed on the inside
where the skin is slightly decayed. Similar little bones
have been found in great numbers with the skeletons of
Mylodon in the Pampa Formation (see Wall-case 26), so that
this ground-sloth and its allies must have been armoured
with a bony mail beneath the hairy outer surface of the skin.
The lumps of excrement from the cavern consist only of
remains of grass, without any traces of leaves. Among
associated animals may be particularly noted the extinct
horse, Onohippidium, of which there are characteristic teeth
besides many well-preserved hoofs.

The armadillos which lived with the Pampean ground-
sloths, were also gigantic compared with their existing
A

B.M GUIDE FOSS. MAMM. AND BIRDS. PLATE IV.

 

Skin of Extinct Ground-sloth (Grypotheriwm lista) from a Cavern near
Last Hope Inlet, Patagonia; one-sixth nat. size. The outer side (A)
bears coarse hair; the inner side (B) exhibits small nodules of bone
imbedded in the substance of the skin. (Table-case 15a.)

(To face p. 74.
MAMMALIA. 75

representatives. They exhibit great variety, but their coat Wall-case
of mail (carapace) is always rigid, not divided into the over- ,, , 26.
Table-case
14b.
Case Z.

mation of Buenos Aires,
(Case Z.)

one-eighteenth nat. size.

Fic. 70.—Skeleton of Glyptodon clavipes, from the Pampa For
Argentine Republic

 
Wall-case
26.
Table-case

14b.
Case Z.

Table-case
14b.

76 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

lapping cross-bands which enable the surviving armadillos
to roll into a ball when attacked. Glyptodon (Fig. 70) is
one of the best known genera, and owes its name (“ sculptured
tooth”) to the circumstance that hard and soft portions
alternate in the teeth, thus imparting a sculptured appearance
to their grinding surface. The actual armour of a fine
specimen is mounted, with a plaster cast of the skeleton, in
Case Z. As here exhibited the total length of the animal,
measured along the curve of the back, is 11 feet 6 inches ;
while the body shield or carapace measures 7 feet in length
by 9 feet across. The armour obviously consists of small
bony rosettes or bosses compacted together, and it must have
been originally covered with a thin outer skin. There is a
little shield on the top of the head; and the covering of the
tail is arranged in successive, overlapping rings. At times
of danger, the animal would probably be able to draw up its

  
    
   
   
 
      
   
   

ea a
SS SS ee ee

Fa in I
IC

cae: Y

{\ oo hey I>

SP
AA =.

<
\\
Ly

Fig. 71.—Portion of tail-sheath of Hoplophorus, from the Pampa Forma-
tion of the Argentine Republic; one-quarter nat. size. (Wall-case 26.)

legs close to the body, so as to rest its carapace on the
ground, while its armour-plated head would be bent down-
wards in front. The massive tail must have moved freely
behind the carapace, and in one genus, Daedicurus, the solid
end of the tail-sheath is somewhat expanded to bear a cluster
of bony bosses which would give it the aspect of a powerful
club (see Wall-case 26). Hoplophorus is a smaller elongated
animal having the end of the tail-sheath without rings
(Fig. 71). It is illustrated by a good series of specimens in
Wall-case 26.

The earlier remains of armadillos from Patagonia, as
shown by the collection in Table-case 148, represent animals
much smaller than those from the Pampa Formation, and
some of them have a banded carapace like that of the living
armadillos. It must, in fact, be understood that the tree-
sloths of the present South American forests and the
MAMMALIA. 17

burrowing armadillos of the existing pampa are not the Table-case
degenerate descendants of the gigantic Pleistocene animals 14.
just described. If all their ancestors were known, they
would probably prove to have been always small; and they
have survived changes which the larger beasts could not
withstand, because they exist in comparatively secure retreats
and do not need a great amount of food.

It is sometimes doubted whether the so-called Edentata
of the Old World—the pangolins and aard varks—are
really related to the South American animals of this Order.
Unfortunately, the known fossils do not help to solve the
problem. Some small bones from the Oligocene Phosphorites
of France, now in the Paris Museum, seem to belong to
ancient pangolins; while skulls, jaws and teeth of the aard
vark or Cape anteater (Orycteropus), which is now confined
to Africa, are exhibited from the Lower Pliocene of Samos,
Greece, and Persia (Table-case 148). No animals ancestral
to these are recognisable.

Sus-cLass I].—METATHERIA.
ORDER X.—MARSUPIALIA.

Like the sloths and armadillos of South America, the Wall-case
kangaroos and wombats of Australia were preceded in the Wixbis-caaes
Pleistocene period by comparatively gigantic relatives. The 14 14a, 15.
largest of these rivalled the rhinoceros in bulk, and its thigh-
bone was so completely adapted for the support of a massive
body, that when it was first discovered it was mistaken by
Owen for the thigh-bone of an elephant. The jaws, however,
and other parts of the skeleton soon enabled Owen to publish
a satisfactory account of the animal, which he named Dipro-
todon (“two-front-teeth”) in allusion to the rabbit-like or
wombat-like arrangement of the anterior cutting teeth
(incisors). The original specimens from the river deposits
of Queensland, many collected by Dr. George Bennett, are
arranged in Wall-case 27 and Table-case 15, with the
remains of an allied smaller animal, Nototherium, from the
same region. Notwithstanding its great size, the general
shape of Diprotodon must have been much like that of the
existing wombats of Australia, and it seems to be related
both to the phalangers and the kangaroos. The skull
(Fig. 72) measures about three feet in length. The grinding
teeth are ridged, much like those of a primitive elephant
78 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

Wall-case such as Dinotheriwm. The toes, as proved by complete

Table-cases S<eletons discovered some years ago on the dry salt plain

14, 14a, 15, bordering Lake Eyre in South Australia, were five in number
but remarkably short and slender.

Table-cases The remains of kangaroos from the river deposits of

14,15. Queensland and New South Wales, and from the Wellington

Caves, New South Wales, indicate animals of various sizes

from that of the smallest living species to that of a donkey.

The unique original collection described by Owen is ex-

hibited in Table-cases 14, 15. The largest extinct species

referred to Procoptodon and Palorchestes, though essentially

kangaroos, had the fore and hind limbs less disproportionate

 

Fig. 72.—Skull and lower jaw of algigantic’ extinct Marsupial, Diprotodon
australis, from the Pleistocene of Queensland ; with a Human Skull (z)
to show comparative size. (Wall-case 27.)

in size than any living members of the family, and would
probably be unable to leap.

Table-case The largest of the extinct wombats, found with Dipro-

14a. todon and the large kangaroos, is Phascolonus, of which the
lower jaw and upper front teeth are shown in Table-case 14a,
It was about as large as an ox. Here are also numerous
remains of wombats of more ordinary size.

Table-case The phalangers seem to be represented among fossils by
the so-called “pouched lion” of Owen, Thylacoleo carnifex,
which is also found with Diprotodon and the large kangaroos
in the Australian river deposits and caverns. Numerous
unique fragments are exhibited, with a restored model of the
MAMMALIA. 79

skull and mandible (Fig. 73), in Table-case 14. This animal Table-case
was regarded by Owen as having preyed upon the large 14
Australian herbivores in the same way that the lion feeds
at present on the antelopes and other herbivores in Africa.
The lion-like shape of the head and jaws, with the great
cutting tooth followed behind by little crushing teeth, seemed
to Owen to justify this conclusion. Other naturalists,
however, have doubted whether Thylacoleo fed on flesh, or at
least was more than a mixed feeder, because its large front
teeth are incisors, and no known existing carnivore has
canine teeth too small for grasping.

The undoubted carnivorous marsupials contemporary
with the extinct animals just enumerated, were identical
with those still surviving in Tasmania. They are species

 

Fig. 73.—Skull and lower jaw of Thylacoleo carnifex, from the Pleistocene
of Australia; one-fifth nat. size. (Table-case 14.)

of the “ Tasmanian Wolf” (Thylacinus) and the “ Tasmanian
Devil” (Sarcophilus), of which jaws are exhibited in Table-
case 14.

Unfortunately no satisfactory remains of mammals are
known from rocks below the Pleistocene in the Australian
region; and the exact connection between the pouched
animals of Australia and the mammals of other parts of
the world has not yet been revealed by fossils. It is,
however, interesting to notice that the Tasmanian Zhylacinus
and Sarcophilus just mentioned are essentially similar to
the Creodonta, which flourished in the northern hemisphere
at the beginning of the Tertiary period (see p. 16), and to
the Sparassodonta, which survived until still later times in
South America (see p. 17). It is also worthy of remark that
the small pouched opossums, now confined to the American
80 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

Table-case tropics, lived with the Creodonta both in Europe and North
14a. America, while other undoubted little pouched animals,
such as Hpanorthus, accompanied the Sparassodonta and
early opossums in South America. Jaws of these small
marsupials, some from the Lower and Upper Eocene of
England, and from the Lower Miocene of France, are shown
in Table case 14a. A few South American jaws are arranged

with them.
From these and other considerations it seems likely that

 

Fic. 74.—Lower jaw and teeth of Triconodon mordaz, from the Purbeck
Beds of Swanage; nat. size. (Table-case-14a.)

 

Fic. 75.—Part of lower jaw and teeth of Spalacotheriuwm tricuspidens,
from the Purbeck Beds of Swanage; outiline-fig. nat. size, c and .d
being lateral and upper views of a molar tooth. (Table-case 14a.)

the Australian region has remained isolated from the rest of
the world since the end of the Secondary epoch, and that its
marsupials are the slightly altered survivors of the mammal-

life then characteristic of every continent.
Table-caze The only known mammals of the Secondary or Mesozoic
oe epoch are creatures about as large as rats, whose jaws and
limb-bones have been found in the Upper Cretaceous and
Jurassic rocks of North America, and in the Jurassic
(Purbeck Beds and Stonesfield Slate) of England. Most of
them seem to have been insectivorous marsupials, and one
MAMMALIA. 81

jaw of a young Triconodon from the Purbeck Beds of Swanage
is believed to show a single tooth being replaced in the
typical marsupial fashion (see p. 17). The unique collection
from the Purbeck Beds, made by Mr. 8S. H. Beckles, is
arranged in Table-case 148, and comprises several jaws of
Triconodon (Fig. 74) and Spalacotherium (Fig. 75), besides
remains of other genera described by Owen in his “ Mono-
graph of Mesozoic Mammals” (Paleont. Soc., 1871). With
these are some jaws from the Stonesfield Slate, including the
original specimen of Phascolotherium bucklandi (Fig. 76),

 

Fic. 76.—Lower jaw and teeth of Phascolotherium bucklandi, from the
Stonesfield Slate of Oxfordshire ; outline-fig. nat.size. (Table-case 14a.)

which was so much discussed by Cuvier, Agassiz, and others
early in the last century. Drawings of the American
Mesozoic jaws are placed with this collection for reference

(Fig. 77).
SuB-cLass JIJ.—PRoToTHERIA.

OrpER XJ_—MULTITUBERCULATA.

In some of the jaws of Mesozoic mammals, and in a
few similar specimens from the base of the Eocene, both in
Europe and North America, there are crushing teeth which
bear two or three rows of tubercles or are provided with
tubercles round the edge. The otherwise unknown animals
to which these jaws belong are named Multituberculata, and
they are supposed to be related to the ancestors of the
living egg-laying mammals (Monotremata) of the Australian
region, because the young Ornithorhynchus has somewhat
similar multituberculate teeth (see Fig. 82, p. 85).

G

Table-case
14a.
82 GUIDE To THE FOoOsstz MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

      

Fic. 77.—Lower jaws of American Jurassic Mammals, from Wyoming,
U.S.A.; A, B, twice nat. size; C-F, thrice nat. size; G, four times
nat. size. Named by 0. C. Marsh as follow :—a. Docodon striatus ;
B. Dicrocynodon victor ; c. Priacodon Jeroz; v, Dryolestes priscus ;
E. Dryolestes voraz; F. Asthenodon segms ;’ @. Laodon venustus.
a, canine; b, condyle; ¢, coronoid process; d, angle; 9, mylohyoid
groove; s, symphysial surface,
MAMMALIA. 83

The largest of these mammals are represented in the
Lower Eocene of New Mexico, U.S.A., by jaws which are
named Polymastodon in allusion to their “teeth with many
nipples.” One piece of jaw and two plaster casts of com-
plete jaws are exhibited in Table-case 144. A much smaller
Maultituberculate, Ptilodus, occurs with Polymastodon in New
Mexico, while the allied Neoplagiaulax (Fig. 78) is found in
the Lower Eocene of Rheims, France; but there are no

i — Sap

eo

Fic. 78.—Upper molar tooth of Neoplagiaulax eocenus, grinding surface
and two lateral aspects, from the Lower Eocene of Rheims, France;
the lower line indicating nat. size. (After Lemoine.)

specimens of these in the collection. Nearly similar teeth
and jaws are met with in the Upper Cretaceous Laramie
Formation of North America; and others, of the genus
Plagiaulaz, of which several jaws are shown in the Beckles
Collection from the Purbeck Beds, have cutting teeth in
front and multituberculate teeth only behind (Fig. 79).
Two-rooted multituberculate teeth, belonging to an un-
known animal named Microlestes, are found even in the

 

Fic. 79.—Lower jaw and cutting teeth of Plagiaulax becklesi, from the
Purbeck Beds of Swanage; twice nat. size. (Table-case 14.)

Rheetic Formation of England and Wiirtemberg. Specimens
of the very small M. moorei are exhibited from a Rhetic
fissure-deposit at Holwell, near Frome. They bear tubercles
round the edge of the crown and closely resemble the hinder
teeth of Plagiaulax. A skull with multituberculate teeth
from the Upper Triassic Karoo Formation of South Africa
was also placed here for some time. This (Fig. 81) was
described under the name of Tritylodon longevus and
assigned to a mammal by Owen; while a fore limb from the
same formation, named Theriodesmus phylarchus by Seeley,
G 2

Table-case
14a.
84 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

 

Fic. 80.—Upper and lower jaws of American Jurassic Multituberculata,
from Wyoming, U.S.A.; three to six times nat. size, as marked.
Named by O. C. Marsh as follows :—a-c. Ctenacodon potens; x, F.
Ctenacodon serratus; G, H, 1, K, N. Allodon fortis; 3, m. Allodon
laticeps; D, . incisors of Ctenacodon. In upper jaws:—l, 2, 3,
incisors; a’, first premolar; a”, second premolar; 6, fourth premolar;
b', third premolar; v, second true molar; m, malar arch; s, suture
with maxilla. In lower jaws:—a, incisor; b, condyle; c, coronoid
process; 7, root of incisor.
MAMMALIA. 85

may perhaps belong to a similar animal. In the Triassic Table-case
period, however, the Theriodont Reptiles so closely approached 14a.

  

Fig. 81.—Skull of Tritylodon longevus, palatal view (a) and upper view (0),
incomplete behind, from the Karoo Formation (Trias) of Basuto-
land, South Africa; two-thirds nat. size. (Gallery of Fossil Reptiles,
Table-case 32.)

the lowest mammals that skeletons alone hardly suffice for
the exact determination of their affinities.

Tritylodon and Theriodesmus are now arranged with the
Theriodonts in the Gallery of Fossil Reptiles (Table-case 32).

OrpER XII.—-MONOTREMATA.

The existing monotremes of the Australian region are Table-case
evidently the much -altered 14a.
survivors of a very ancient
race, and owe their escape from
extinction to their small size
and burrowing habits. Their
predecessors, however, are

 

almost unknown. Plaster

casts of some limb-bones of a of the existing Australian

large Echidna from the Wel- Monotreme (Ornithorhynchus),

lington Caves, New South showing their multitubercu-
“pe : late crown; three times nat.

Wales, are exhibited in Table- dina. (After C, Stewart.)

case 14a,
Table-case

86 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

GaLLERY No. 2.—FOSSIL BIRDS.

Remains of birds are very rare among fossils, except in
comparatively modern deposits on land; and even under
these circumstances they are usually quite fragmentary.
They occur most commonly in swamps, such as the English
Fenland ; in the bed of silted-up lakes; and in caverns and
fissures. They are only found by rare accident in the
marine deposits of an earlier geological date.

Cuass.—A VES.
OrpER I.—CARINATA.

The English Prehistoric and Pleistocene birds, so far as
known from the local deposits just mentioned, were essen-
tially similar to those which have lived in this country
during historic times. Of special interest, however, is the
discovery of remains of the pelican in the Fenland, and in
refuse heaps on the site of an ancient British village near
Glastonbury (see Table-case 13). It is also worthy of note
that the great auk or gare fowl (Alcea impennis), which became
extinct In 1844, has been found in deposits in the north of
England, Scotland, and Ireland; and a complete skeleton of
this bird, discovered by Professor John Milne in a guano
deposit on Funk Island, off Newfoundland, is exhibited in a
special Case near the S.E. window.

Among older remains of European flying birds exhibited
in Table-case 13, may be noted a leg-bone of an albatross
from the Red Crag of Suffulk; bones of flamingo-like birds
(Palelodus, Phenicopterus), a species of ibis, ducks, and
other birds from the Miocene of France; and various eggs
and feathers in Miocene freshwater limestones and lignite
from France and Germany.

Still older is the unique collection of remains of Lower
Eocene birds from the London Clay exhibited in the same
Table-case. These fossils chiefly represent fish-eating sea-
birds, among which Odontopteryx and Prophaethon are
especially noteworthy. The skull of Odontopteryx (Fig. 83)
is remarkable for its strongly serrated jaws, the little pointed
AVES, 87
processes of bone being doubtless originally covered by

similar elevations of the horny beak, which would act like
teeth in dealing with the slippery prey. This bird was

PES Xs
anaes ee

 
 
  
 

Fie. 83.—Skull and lower jaw of Odontopteryzx toliapica, with bony denticles
on jaws, from the London Clay of; Sheppey; two-thirds nat. size.
(Table-case: 13.)

probably related to the living gannets. Prophaethon resembles
a modern frigate bird, but has relatively larger hind legs.
Like the other fossils of the London Clay, these birds indicate
a subtropical climate in the south of England at the time
when they lived here.

From the London Clay there is also part of a large
skull named Dasornis londiniensis hy Owen, who thought
it might perhaps belong to a Ratite bird like the ostrich.
More satisfactory remains of a large running bird, Gastornis,
from the Lower Eocene of England, France, and Belgium,
suggest affinities with the geese rather than with the
ostriches.

The earliest of all true and typical birds hitherto dis-
covered, are represented in Table-case 13 by a few bones of
Enaliornis from the Cambridge Greensand (Upper Cretaceous)
and by vertebree, a pelvis, and limb-bones, with plaster casts
of other bones, of Hesperornis from the Chalk of Kansas,
U.S.A. The vertebre with saddle-shaped ends are especially
well preserved. These fossils seem to belong to swimming
birds like the existing divers (Colymbus); and the larger
bones from Kansas indicate a species H. regalis (Fig. 84),
which would measure from three to four feet in height. <A
large drawing of a skeleton restored by the discoverer,
Professor O. C. Marsh, is framed near the window. Hesper-
ornis has teeth in a groove in each jaw, though the extremity
of its upper jaw is toothless, and would probably be covered
with the usual horny beak. The bird must have been flight-
less, as indicated by its flattened breast-bone (sternum). A

Table-case
13.
88 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

Table-case little flying bird with keeled sternum, Ichthyornis (Fig. 85),
18. has also been found in the Kansas Chalk, but is not
represented in the collection. Its teeth are in distinct

sockets, and some of its vertebre are biconcave.

 

Fic. 84.—Skeleton of a toothed flightless bird, Fesperornis regalis, from the
Cretaceous of Kansas, U.S.A.; about one-eighth nat. size. (After
Marsh. See Table-case 13.)

Table-case § Among quite recently exterminated Carinate from the
6 le. southern hemisphere, the rails from New Zealand (Aptornis),
AVES. 89

the Chatham Islands (Diaphorapteryx) and Mauritius (Aphan-
apteryx), are of great interest on account of their close
resemblance to each other and to the living weka rail
(Ocydromus) of New Zealand. As they are all unable to fly,

      

Bn Gesnea
Tn Ge tral

Fig. 85.—Skeleton of a toothed flying bird, Ichthyornis victor, from the
Cretaceous of Kansas, U.S.A.; one-half nat. size. (After Marsh.)

it is difficult to understand how they reached such widely
separated islands, unless these are pieces of a comparatively
modern continent which has become submerged. They are

Table-case
18a.
Case CC.
Table-case
18a.
Case CC.

Case DD.
Wall-case
25.

Case EE.

Wall-case
5.
Case BB.

Table-case
12a.
Case AA.

90 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

illustrated by various specimens in Table-case 13a, and by
complete skeletons of Aptornis and Diaphorapteryx in a
special Case marked CC.

With these rails there also lived flightless geese and coots
on the islands of the southern Ocean. An incomplete
skeleton of the large flightless goose (Cnemiornis calcitrans)
from New Zealand is mounted in Case DD; and there is a
reconstructed skeleton of a coot (Palxolimnas chathamensis)
from the Chatham Islands in Wall-case 25. Other remains
of the same birds and their allied genera are arranged in
Table-case 134. They and the smaller kinds of moas in New
Zealand were probably the food of a large and powerful bird
of prey (Harpagornis mooret), of which the greater part of a
skeleton is mounted in Case EE.

 

Fic. 86.—Restored skull and lower; jaw of Phororhachos longissimus,
from the Santa Cruz Formation of Patagonia; one-sixth nat. size.
(Case AA.)

A reconstructed skeleton, with plaster casts of the head
and foot, of the extinct dodo (Didus zneptus) or flightless
ground-pigeon of Mauritius, is exhibited in Case BR, and
there are other bones in Wall-case 25. This bird, however,
is better illustrated in the Department of Zoology, where
there is also a skeleton of the allied solitaire (Pezophaps) from
Rodriguez.

To a somewhat earlier geological period must be assigned
the extinct cariamas and other birds from the Santa Cruz
and other Tertiary Formations of Patagonia, which are com-
prised in the Ameghino Collection in Table-case 12a.
Phororhachos, the best known genus, is characterised by a
very large head and a small body, as shown by the associated
AVES. 91

parts of a single individual here exhibited. One of the
largest species, Phororhachos longissimus, is represented by a
nearly complete lower jaw and the sharp tip of the upper
jaw, which are enough to justify the model of a restored
skull and mandible of this bird mounted in an adjoining
special Case (AA). The model (Fig. 86) measures nearly
two feet in length, and is much larger than the head of any
other known bird. The use of the powerful hooked beak is
unknown.

OrvER I].—RATITA.

The ostrich-like flightless birds were much more numerous
and more widely distributed in the Pleistocene period than
they are at the present day. They were especially charac-
teristic of the southern hemisphere, and some of them
attained a gigantic size.

These birds were most numerously represented in New
Zealand, where they survived until the aniival of the Maories,
and may even have existed in some places at the time of
Captain Cook’s visit in 1777. They are referred to in many
native legends under the name of “ Moa,” but they remained
unknown to science until 1839, when the shaft of a small
thigh-bone, now exhibited in Table-case 12, was described
by Owen. He recognised that this bone belonged to a
flightless bird of a heavier and more sluggish kind than the
ostrich, which he proposed to name Dinornis struthioides
(“terrible bird like an ostrich”). By the exertions of the
Hon. Walter Mantell and numerous later explorers a won-
derful series of Dinornithide of many genera, species, and
varieties has gradually been discovered, and these birds are
now well represented in the collection. Of the largest species,
Dinornis maximus, there is a nearly complete skeleton of
one individual 8 ft. 6 in. in height in Case GG (see
Plate V). With this is placed another complete skeleton of
one of the smallest species, Anomalopteryx parva, only three
feet in height. There is also a stuffed specimen of a kiwi
(Apteryx), which is the sole survivor of the Ratite in New
Zealand at the present day. In boxes on the floor of the
case are some of the bony rings of the windpipe found with
the fossil skeletons. The skeleton of a medium-sized bird
with very stout legs, Pachyornis elephantopus, is mounted in
Case FF, and in front of this there is a small slab of sand-
stone from a hardened beach bearing the footprint of one of
the moas. Skeletons of two more slender small species,

Table-case
12a.
Case AA.

Wall-cases
23-25.
Table-case
12.

Case GG.

Case FF.
Case HH.

Wall-cases
23, 24.
Table-case
12.

Case GG.

Wall-case
24,

Wall-case

Case IT.

92 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS.

Anomalopteryx didiformis and Emeus gravipes, are exhibited
in Case HH. There are also various more fragmentary
specimens of Dinornithide in Wall-cases 23 and 24 and in
Table-case 12. In the latter may be noticed, besides eggs
and feathers, the mummified remains of the head, neck and
legs of a small species from a very dry fissure-cavern in
Otago. This specimen shows, in addition to the skin, the
bony (sclerotic) plates round the eye, the tracheal rings of
the windpipe, and the sheath of the claws. Many of the more
fragmentary bones were obtained from the old cooking-places
of the Maories, who seem to have hunted and fed upon the
moas.

As shown by the fine skeleton of Dinornis maximus
(Plate V), the wing is more reduced in the Dinornithide
than in any other known birds. There is nothing beyond a
small scapulo-coracoid bone, which does not even bear a
socket for the limb. The feathers agree much more closely
with those of the Australian emus and cassowaries than
with those of the New Zealand kiwis.

In the Australian region there were emus in the Pleisto-
cene period. There was also another large Ratite bird,
Genyornis newtoni, of which remains have been discovered
near Lake Callabonna, South Australia. As shown by a
hind limb in Wall-case 24, it had three remarkably slender
toes. It lived with the small-toed Diprotodon already
mentioned (p. 78).

Ratite birds were also abundant in Madagascar at a quite
recent geological period, although none now survive in that
island. They seem to have been most closely similar to the
Apteryx and moas of New Zealand, and one species, Aepyornis
titan, of which there are limb bones in Wall-case 25, probably
exceeded in size the largest of the New Zealand birds. A
specimen of moderate dimensions, Aepyornis hildebrandtt, is
represented in Case II by a reconstructed skeleton, which
exhibits a short and broad breastbone, like that of Apteryz,
with remains of a very small wing. Eggs of Aepyornis are
not uncommon in the sand bordering the lakes of Madagascar,
and they are sometimes washed out during stormy weather.
Under these circumstances they float on the water and are
picked up by the natives. Fine examples are shown in Case
Il. The largest measures three feet in its largest circum-
ference by two feet six inches in girth, and its liquid contents
would equal a little more than two gallons. Such eggs would
probably be laid by the largest species, Aepyornis titan and
B.M. GUIDE FOSS. MAMM. anp BIRDS,

 

Skeleton of the Gigantic Moa (Dinornis maximus) from New Zealand ;
one-seventeenth nat, size. (Case HH.)

[Yo face p, 92.

 
 
AVES. 93

A, maximus, but it is worthy of note that in the New Zealand
Apteryx the egg is enormous compared with the size of the
bird which lays it (see Case GG).

The living rheas of South America were preceded in the
Tertiary period by large birds like Brontornis, of which
plaster casts of limb bones are exhibited in Wall-case 25.
The two-toed ostriches, which are now confined to Africa
and Arabia, ranged into the Indian and south-eastern
European regions in Pliocene times. Remains of Struthio
asiaticus from the Siwalik Formation of India are placed
with the skeleton of a modern ostrich in Case JJ. A
small piece of limb bone from the Eocene of the Fayum,
Egypt, exhibited in Table-case 12, probably represents an
ancestor of the ostriches, which has been named Hremopezus
ecocaenus,

Orper II] —SAURURA.

Birds are proved by their structure to be closely related
to reptiles; and many of the extinct reptiles exhibit pecu-
liarities which are now exclusively confined to birds. It is
therefore interesting to observe that the oldest known birds,
which date back to the latter part of the Jurassic period,
approach the reptiles more nearly than any existing birds in
at least four respects. They are peculiar in (1) the possession
of true teeth, (2) the biconcave or flat-ended shape of their
vertebre, (3) the completeness of three clawed fingers in the
wing, and (4) the elongated, not tufted, shape of the tail.
In allusion to the last-mentioned feature they are named
Saururee (“ lizard-tails ”).

Of these primitive birds only two satisfactory specimens
have hitherto been discovered, both in the Lithographic
Stone of Bavaria, which is of the same geological age as the
Kimmeridge Clay of England. They seem to belong to two
species of one genus, and the first specimen, representing
Archeopteryz macrura of Owen, is shown in Table-case 13.
The piece of limestone in which the skeleton is preserved has
split along the plane of weakness caused by the presence of
the fossil itself, so that some of the bones adhere to one face
while other portions are retained by the counterpart slab. It
is thus necessary to exhibit the two slabs side by side, the
one supplementing the other. As shown by the accompany-
ing photograph (Plate VI) and the explanatory diagram
(Fig. 87), there is a typical bird’s “ merrythought ” (furcula)

Wall-case
25.
Case II.

Wall-case
25.

Case JJ.

Table-case
13.
 

Fig. 87.—Diagrammatic sketch of the fossil lizard-tailed bird, Archzo-
pteryx macrura, from the Lithographic Stone (Upper Jurassic) of
Hichstadt, Bavaria; about one-quarter nat. size. a, acetabulum:
b, cast of brain-cavity of skull; c, ribs; cr, carpals; f, femur; fu fur.
cula; #, humerus; i, ischium; mi, tarsometatarsus; p, phalanges of
foot; 7, radius; sc, scapula; ¢, tibia; «, ulna; 1, 2, phalanges of hand
(Table-case 13.) ;
B.M. GUIDE FOSS. MAMM. anp BIRDS. PLATE VI.

 

Fossil Lizard-tailed Bird, Archeopteryx macrura, from the Lithographic Stone (Upper
Jurassic) of Kichstadt, Bavaria; about one-quarter nat. size. (Table-case 13.)

[To face p. 94.
 
AVES, 95

between the wings; and the hind leg is exactly that of a
perching bird. The long tail, however, comprises a row of
twenty slender vertebre, each bearing a pair of feathers.
Owing to the fine grain of the stone, the feathers both of
the wings and the tail are perfectly displayed in impressions,
which were made when the actual feathers were originally
buried in the soft limy mud.

Of the second specimen of the Archxopteryx, now in the
Berlin Museum, a plaster cast is placed next to the first
example in Table-case 13. It retains the head, which is
quite bird-shaped, though its jaws are provided with teeth

 

Fie. 88.—Skull and lower jaw of Archxopteryx siemensi, showing teeth,
from the Lithographic Stone (Upper Jurassic) of Hichstidt, Bavaria ;
nat. size. (After Dames. Original in Berlin Museum, plaster cast
in Table-case 13.)

in sockets (Fig. 88). It also exhibits the three clawed fingers
of the wing. A photograph of the specimen is fixed head
downwards on the wall near the window, to show the lizard-
like sprawl assumed by the skeleton at the time it was
buried.

Table-case
13.
A.

Aard vark, 77.
Aceratherium, 21.
Adapis, 10.
Aepyornis, 92.
Ailurus, 14.
Albatross, 86.

Alca, 86.

Alces, 41.

Allodon, 84.
Amblypoda, 44.
American horses, 22.
Amphicyon, 15.
Amphitragulus, 42.
Anchitherium, 25.
Ancylopoda, 27.
Ancylotherium, 27.
Anomalopteryx, 91.
Anoplotheriide, 33.
Anoplotherium, 33.
Anteater, 71.
Antelope, 43.

Anthracotheriide, 31.
Anthracotherium, 31.

Anthropoidea, 9.
Antlers, 42.

Apes, 10.
Aphanapteryx, 89.
Aptornis, 88.
Archeopteryz, 93.
Arctotherium, 15.
Armadillo, 71, 74.
Arsinoitherium, 47.
Artiodactyla, 28.
Asthenodon, 82.
Aves, 86.

Badger, 14.
Balaenide, 69.
Basilosaurus, 71.
Bat, 18.

Beaked whales, 69.
Bear, 14.

( 96 )

INDEX.

Se

 

Beaver, 66.
Birds, 86.

Bison, 43.
Bone-beds, 2.
Bone-breccias, 3.
Bos, 438.
Borhyena, 17.
Bovide, 43.
Brachyodus, 33.
Bramatherium, 37.
Brontornis, 93.
Bubalus, 44.

C.

Cenotheriide, 33.
Cenotherium, 35.
Camel, 35.
Canide, 14.
Capreolus, 41.
Cariama, 90.
Carinatz, 86.
Carnassial tooth, 17.
Carnivora, 12.
Castor, 66.
Castoroides, 67.
Cats, 12.

Cattle, 43.
Cave-bear, 15.
Cave-earth, 3,
Cave-hyzna, 13.
Cave-lion, 12.
Caverns, 3.
Cephalogale, 15.
Cervide, 38.
Cervus, 38.
Cetacea, 69.
Chalicotherium, 27.
Chevrotain, 35.
Chiroptera, 18.
Choeropotamus, 31.
Civets, 13.

Cloven hoof, 28.
Cnemiornis, 90.
Colymbus, 87.
Condylarthra, 48.
Coot, 90.
Coprolites, 6.
Coryphodon, 44.
Creodonta, 16.
Criotherium, 44.
Ctenacodon, 84.
Cud-chewers, 31.
Cuniculus, 67.
Cynodictis, 14.

D.

Daedicurus, 76.
Dasornis, 87.
Deer, 38.

Antlers, 42.
Desman, 18.
Diaphorapteryx, 89.
Diastema, 33.
Dichodon, 35.
Dicotyles, 31.
Dicrocynodon, 82.
Didus, 90.
Dinoceras, 46.
Dinocerata, 46.
Dinornis, 91.
Dinotherium, 62.
Diprotodon, 77.
Diver, 87.
Docodon, 82.
Dodo, 90.

Dog, 14.

Dogger. Bank, 4.
Dolphin, 69.
Dorcatherium, 35.
Dormouse, 67.
Dryolestes, 82.
Duck, 86.

 

E.

Echidna, 85.
Edentata, 71.
Elasmotherium, 22.
Elephant, 52.
Elephas, 52.
Elk, 41.
Elotherium, 31.
Emeus, 92.
Enaliornis, 87.
Eoliths, 8.
Eosiren, 69.
Eotherium, 69.
Epanorthus, 80.
Equidae, 22.
Eremopezus, 93.
Eutheria, 9.

Even-toed hoofed animals, 28.

 

INDEX. 97

F.

Fallow deer, 41.

Felide, 12.

Felis, 12.

Felsinotherium, 68.
Flamingo, 86.

Fossil Fox of Oeningen, 14.
Fox, 14.

G.

Gare fowl, 86.
Gastornis, 87.
Gazella, 44.
Genyornis, 92.
Geology, xv.
Giraffa, 37.

Giraffe, 37.
Giraffide, 37.
Glutton, 14.
Glyptodon, 76.
Gnawing mammals, 66.
Goose, 90.

Great auk, 86.
Ground-pigeon, 90.
Ground-sloth, 71.
Grypotherium, 74.
Guadaloupe Maun, 9.
Gulo, 14. |

H.

Halitherium, 68.
Hare, 67.
Harpagornis, 90.
Hedgehog, 17.
Helladotherium, 37.
Hesperornis, 87.
Hipparion, 2, 24.
Hippidium, 22.
Hippohyus, 30.
Hippopotamide, 29.
Hippopotamus, 29.
Hoofed animals, 18.
Hoplophoneus, 13.
Hoplophorus, 76.
Horse, 22.

Hyena, 13..
Hyena-dens, 13.
Hyenarctos, 15.
Hyznide, 13.
Hyzenodon, 17.
Hydaspitherium, 37.
Hyopotamus, 31.
Hyotherium, 31.
Hyracodon, 22.
Hyracoidea, 48.
Hyracotherium, 25.
98

Hyrax, 48.
Hystricomorpha, 67.

I.

Ibis, 86.
Ichthyornis, 88.
Ictitherium, 13.
Insectivora, 17.
Irish deer, 38.

J.
Jackal, 14.

Jurassic Mammals, 80.

K.
Kangaroo, 77.

L.

Lagomorpha, 67.
Laodon, 82.
Leithia, 67.
Lemming, 67.
Lemuroidea, 10.
Lemurs, 10.
Lion, 12.
Listriodon, 31.
Litopterna, 48.
Llama, 35.
Lophiodon, 25.

M.

Macacus, 10.
Macherodontide, 12.
Macherodus, 12.
Macrauchenia, 50.
Macrotherium, 27.
Mammoth, 52.
Man, fossil, 9.
Manatee, 68.
Marsupialia, 77.
Mastodon, 57.
Megaladapis, 11.
Megalohyrax, 48.
Megamys, 67.
Megatherium, 71.
Merycopotamus, 33.
Mesohippus, 25.
Mesopithecus, 10.
Mesoplodon, 69.
Metatheria, 77.
Microlestes, 83.
Moa, 90, 91.
Moeritherium, 64.
Mole, 17.

 

INDEX.

Mongooses, 13.
Monkeys, 10.
Monotremata, 81, 85.
Multituberculata, 81.
Musk-ox, 43.

Mylodon, 71.

Myodes, 67. 2
Myogale, 18.
Myomorpha, 67.

N.

Neanderthal Man, 9.
Necrolemur, 10.
Neoplagiaulax, 83.
Nesodon, 50.
Nesopithecus, 11.
Nimravide, 12.
Nototherium, 77.

O.

Odd-toed hoofed animals, 18.
Odontopteryx, 86.
Okapi, 37.

Olivola, 2.
Onohippidium, 22, 74.
Opossum, 79,
Oreodon, 35.
Oreodontide, 35.
Ornithorhynchus, 81.
Orycteropus, 77.
Ostrich, 91.

Otter, 14.

Ovibos, 43.

Oxen, 43.

BP,

Pachyornis, 91.
Paidopithex, 10.
Palelodus, 86.
Paleolimnas, 90.
Paleolithic implements, 6.
Paleomastodon, 64.
Paleontology, xvi.
Paleoreas, 44.
Paleotherium, 25.
Palorchestes, 78.
Pangolin, 77.
Peccary, 31.

Pelican, 86.
Perissodactyla, 18.
Pezophaps, 90.
Pheenicopterus, 86.
Phalanger, 77.
Phascolonus, 78.
Phascolotherium, 81.
Phenacodus, 26.
Phororhachos, 20.
Pica, 67.

Pig, 30.

Pikermi, bone-bed, 2.
Pinnipedia, 17.
Pithecanthropus, 10.
Plagiaulax, 83.
Pleistocene Europe, 3.

Pleistocene Mammals, 4.

Pleistocene Man, 6.
Pliocene Mammals, 8.
Pliohyrax, 48.
Poebrotherium, 35.
Polymastodon, 83.
Porpoise, 69.
Pouched lion, 78.
Priacodon, 82.
Primates, 9.
Primitive Man, 9.
Prozlurus, 12.
Proboscidea, 52.
Procoptodon, 78.
Procyonide, 14.
Prodremotherium, 35.
Prophethon, 86.
Prorastomus, 68.
Prosqualodon, 70.
Proterotheriide, 52.
Prothylacinus, 17.
Protohippus, 24.
Protorohippus, 25.
Prototheria, 81.
Pseudelurus, 12.
Pterodon, 17.
Ptilodus, 83.

Purbeck Mammals, 80.
Pyrotherium, 50.

R.

Rabbit, 67.
Racoon, 14.
Rail, 88.
Rangifer, 41.
Ratitz, 91.
Red deer, 41.
Reindeer, 41.
Rhinoceros, 18.
Rhytina, 67.
Rodentia, 66.
Rodents, 66.
Roebuck, 41.
Ruminants, 31.

5.

Sabre-toothed tiger, 12.
Saiga, 43.

 

INDEX. 99

Samos, Isle of, 2.
Samotherium, 37.
Sarcophilus, 79.
Saurure, 93.
Scelidotherium, 71.
Sciuromorpha, 66.
Sea-cows, 67.

Seal, 17.

Sectorial Tooth, 17.
Selenodont, 31.
Sheep, 43.

Shrew, 17.
Simiide, 10.
Sirenia, 67.
Sivatherium, 37.
Sloth, 71.

Solitaire, 90.
Spalacotherium, 81.
Sparassodonta, 17.
Spurrell’s flint, 7.
Spy Man, 9.
Squalodon, 70.
Stalagmite, 3.
Stegodon, 57.
Steller’s Sea-cow, 67.
Struthio, 93.

Suide, 30.
Sus, 30.
T.

Tapir, 26.
Tapiride, 26.
Tapirus, 26.
Tasmanian Devil, 79.

Wolf, 79.

Tetrabelodon, 61.
Theriodesmus, 85.
Three-toed horse, 24.
Thylacinus, 79.
Thylacoleo, 78.
Tilbury Man, 9.
Tinoceras, 47.
Titanotheriide, 22.
Titanotherium, 22.
Toothed birds, 87.
whales, 70.
Toxodon, 50.
Toxodontia, 48.
Tragoceros, 44.
Tragulide, 35.
Trichecodon, 17.
Triconodon, 81.
Tritylodon, 83.
Trogontherium, 66,
Tylopoda, 35.
Typotherium, 48.

 
100

U~

Uintatherium, 46.
Ungulata, 18.
Urside, 14.
Ursus, 15.

Urus, 43.

Viverride, 13.

Walrus, 17.
Weasel, 14.

 

INDEX.

Whale, 69.

Wild-boar, 30.

Wolf, 14.

Wombat, 77.

Woolly rhinoceros, 19.

X.

Xiphodontide, 35.

Z.

Zeuglodon, 71.

 

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND GREAT WINDMILL STREET, W.
 

 

BRITISH MUSEUM
(NATURAL HISTORY).

DAYS AND HOURS OF ADMISSION.

The Exhibition Galleries are open to the Public free, every
WEEK-DAY, in

January, from 10 a.m. till 4 P.M.
February, Sn ANY Lat ce bon eRe tag
Marck, ‘aye an, apie ap ey,
April to August, pi lanl SAN? eostehe een
September, ‘i Weptiy BY alana Bons Wes eon
October, 9g SN Gat gs has neal OUR
November and December, eilko Gh? ree Thee mS ae

Also, on Monpays and Sarurpays only, from May ist to the
middle of July, till 8 p.m., and from the middle ot July
to the end of August, till 7 p.m. ~

The Museum is also open on SunpDAy AFTERNOONS throughout
the year.

‘Tbe Museum is closed on Good Friday and Christmas Day.

By Order of the Trustees,

EK. RAY LANKESTER,
Director.

 

 
  

 

 

 

 

LONDON: PRINTED BY WM. CLOWKS AND SONS, LTD., DUKE ST,, STAMFORD ST., S.E., AND GT. WINDMILL ST., ¥

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