the areas south of the Alps and Pyrenees which cannot with any certainty be said to belong to one stage of the Pleistocene rather than to the other. The Antilope saiga has been added to the list of the French Mammalia by M. Lartet from remains found in the cave of Bruniquel. The caves of Mentone, explored by Mr. Moggeridge[1], and the caves and river-deposits of Provence are remarkable for the absence of the Reindeer, which is so abundant in those of the Pyrenees.
The same group[2] of animals has been proved to have occupied Belgium by the researches of Dr. Schmerling and M. Dupont; while their range is extended into Suabia by the investigations of Prof. O. Fraas, and into Switzerland by Dr. Rütimeyer. They also passed eastwards, and are found in the caves of Bavaria; and the more characteristic forms (such as the Mammoth, Woolly Rhinoceros, Musk-sheep, Reindeer, and Bison) have been traced through Russia in Europe by Pallas, into Northern Asia, where they have been met with in vast abundance by many explorers[3].
9. The Middle Pleistocene.
The middle division of the Pleistocene, or that stage which is represented in Britain by the older deposit in Kent's Hole and the brick-earths of the Thames valley, is represented by a river-deposit in the Auvergne, which contains Machærodus latidens, and the cave of Baume, in the Jura, in which Machærodus occurs in association with the Cave-bear, Hyæna, Elephant, and a non-tichorine species of Rhinoceros. The distinctness of M. latidens from any of the Pliocene species has been satisfactorily decided by Prof. Gervais. The animal may therefore be taken as characteristic of a non-Pliocene era in the history of the animals of Europe; and since, on the one hand, the entire Arctic group of animals, so characteristic of the Late Pleistocene stage, is absent, and, on the other, all the peculiar animals of the early stage represented by the Forest-bed, that era must be Middle Pleistocene[4].
10. The Early Pleistocene Division.
The river-deposit of St.-Prest, near Chartres, represents in France, according to Prof. Gervais, the Early Pleistocene stage of the Forest-
- ↑ Brit. Assoc. Meeting 1871, Edinburgh; Congrès International d'Anthropologie & d'Archéologie préhistoriques, Paris, volume for 1867, p. 96.
- ↑ The authorities for this list are the following writers:—For France and Belgium, those which have been quoted, Lartet, Christy, Gervais, Gaudry, De Serres. For those of Belgium, Dr. Schmerling, 'Les Oss. Foss. des Cavernes de Liège.' Suabia: Dr. Fraas. Switzerland: Dr. Rütimeyer. Prussia: Sir Charles Lyell, 'Antiquity of Man;' Giebel 'Paläontologie,' Quedlinburg, 1851, p. 32. Spain: M. Lartet, ' Ann. des Sc. Nat.' Gibraltar, Italy, Sicily: Falconer, 'Palæont. Memoirs,' vol. ii.; Busk, 'Prehistoric Congress,' Norwich, 1868.
- ↑ Middendorff, 'Sibirische Reise.' Wrangel, 'Siberia and the Polar Sea,' transl. by Major Sabine, 1840.
- ↑ The authorities for this paragraph are:—Gervais, 'Zool. et Paléont. Franç., article Machærodus; 'Animaux vertébr.' 1867–69, p. 76; Lartet, 'Congrès International d'Anthropologie et d'Archéologie préhistoriques,' Paris, p. 269.
