able
of supporting abundance of animal life. This is indicated by the number
and variety of the species of large animals that have been found fossil
in very limited areas which they evidently inhabited at one period. M.
Albert Gaudry found, in the deposits of a mountain stream at Pikermi in
Greece, an abundance of large mammalia such as are nowhere to be found
living together at the present time. Among them were two species of
Mastodon, two different rhinoceroses, a gigantic wild boar, a camel and
a giraffe larger than those now living, several monkeys, carnivora
ranging from martens and civets to lions and hyaenas of the largest
size, numerous antelopes of at least five distinct genera, and besides
these many forms altogether extinct. Such were the great herds of
Hipparion, an ancestral form of horse; the Helladotherium, a huge animal
bigger than the giraffe; the Ancylotherium, one of the Edentata; the
huge Dinotherium; the Aceratherium, allied to the rhinoceros; and the
monstrous Chalicotherium, allied to the swine and ruminants, but as
large as a rhinoceros; and to prey upon these, the great Machairodus or
sabre-toothed tiger. And all these remains were found in a space 300
paces long by 60 paces broad, many of the species existing in enormous
quantities.

The Pikermi fossils belong to the Upper Miocene formation, but an
equally rich deposit of Upper Eocene age has been discovered in
South-Western France at Quercy, where M. Filhol has determined the
presence of no less than forty-two species of beasts of prey alone.
Equally remarkable are the various discoveries of mammalian fossils in
North America, especially in the old lake bottoms now forming what are
called the "bad lands" of Dakota and Nebraska, belonging to the Miocene
period. Here are found an enormous assemblage of remains, often perfect
skeletons, of herbivora and carnivora, as varied and interesting as
those from the localities already referred to in Europe; but altogether
distinct, and far exceeding, in number and variety of species of the
larger animals, the whole existing fauna of North America. Very similar
phenomena occur in South America and in Australia, leading us to the
conclusion that the earth at the present time is impoverished as regards
the larger animals, and that at each successive period of Tertiary time,
at all events, it contained a far greater number of species than now
inhabit it. The very richness and abundance of the remains which we