[Illustration: Fig. 73.

ELEPHAS PRIMIGENIUS.

(_Mammoth._) Great British Elephant.]

[Illustration: Fig. 74.

TROGONTHERIUM CUVIERI.

Gigantic Beaver. (_Pleistocene._)]

[Illustration: Fig. 75.

URSUS SPELAEUS.

Cave Bear. (_Pleistocene._)]

[Illustration: Fig. 76.

HYENA SPELAEA.

Cave Hyaena. (_Pleistocene._)]

The group of mammals which, in Europe, at least, immediately preceded
the human period seems to have been everywhere a remarkable one; and
nowhere was it more so than in the British islands. Our present
mammaliferous fauna is rather poor; but the contents of the later
deposits show that we must regard it as but a mere fragment of a very
noble one. Associated with species that still exist in the less
cultivated parts of the country, such as the badger, the fox, the wild
cat, the roe and the red deer, we find the remains of great animals,
whose congeners must now be sought for in the intertropical regions.
Britain, during the times of the boulder clay, and for ages previous,
had its native elephant, its two species of rhinoceros, its
hippopotamus, its hyaena, its tiger, its three species of bears, its two
species of beavers, its great elk, and its gigantic deer. Forms now
found widely apart, and in very different climates, meet within the
British area. During at least the earlier times of the group, the
temperature of our island seems to have been very much what it is now.
As I have already had occasion to remark, the British oak flourished on
its plains and lower slopes, and the birch and Scotch fir on its hills.
And yet under these familiar trees the lagomys or tailless hare, a form
now mainly restricted to Siberia and the wilds of Northern America, and
the reindeer, an animal whose proper habitat at the present time is
Lapland, were associated with forms that are now only to be found
between the tropics, such as that of the hippopotamus and rhinoceros.
These last, however, unequivocally of extinct species, seem to have been
adapted to live in a temperate climate; and we know from the famous
Siberian specimen, that the British elephant, with its covering of long
hair and closely-felted wool, was fitted to sustain the rigors of a very
severe one. It is surely a strange fact, but not less true than strange,
that since hill and dale assumed in Britain their present configuration,
and the oak and birch flourished in its woods, there were caves in
England haunted for ages by families of hyaenas