Here it is to be regretted that our materials for forming a judgment
are nothing to be compared in point of extent or variety with those
which are yielded by the Miocene strata. However, what we do know
of this Upper Eocene Fauna of Europe gives sufficient positive
information to enable us to draw some tolerably safe inferences. It
has yielded representatives of _Insectivora_, of _Cheiroptera_,
of _Rodentia_, of _Carnivora_, of artiodactyle and perissodactyle
_Ungulata_, and of opossum-like Marsupials. No Australian type of
Marsupial has been discovered in the Upper Eocene strata, nor any
Edentate mammal. The genera (except perhaps in the case of some of the
_Insectivora_, _Cheiroptera_, and _Rodentia_) are different from those
of the Miocene epoch, but present a remarkable general similarity to
the Miocene and recent genera. In several cases, as I have already
shown, it has now been clearly made out that the relation between
the Eocene and Miocene forms is such that the Eocene form is the less
specialized; while its Miocene ally is more so, and the specialization
reaches its maximum in the recent forms of the same type.
So far as the Upper Eocene and the Miocene Mammalian Faunae are
comparable, their relations are such as in no way to oppose the
hypothesis that the older are the progenitors of the more recent
forms, while, in some cases, they distinctly favour that hypothesis.
The period in time and the changes in physical geography represented
by the nummulitic deposits are undoubtedly very great, while the
remains of Middle Eocene and Older Eocene Mammals are comparatively
few. The general facies of the Middle Eocene Fauna, however, is quite
that of the Upper. The Older Eocene pre-nummulitic mammalian Fauna
contains Bats, two genera of _Carnivora_, three genera of _Ungulata_
(probably all perissodactyle), and a didelphid Marsupial; all these
forms, except perhaps the Bat and the Opossum, belong to genera
which are not known to occur out of the Lower Eocene formation. The
_Coryphodon_ appears to have been allied to the Miocene and later
Tapirs, while _Pliolophus_, in its skull and dentition, curiously
partakes of both artiodactyle and perissodactyle characters; the third
trochanter upon its femur, and its three-toed hind foot, however,
appear definitely to fix its position in the latter division.
There is nothing, then, in what is known of the older Eocene mammals
of the Arctogaeal province to forbid the supposition that they stood
in an ancestral relation to those of the Calcaire Grossier and the
Gypsum of the Paris basin, and that our present fauna, therefore, is
directly derived from that which already existed in Arctogaea at the
commencement of the Tertiary period. But if we now cross the frontier
between the Cainozoic and the Mesozoic faunae, as they are preserved
within the Arctogaeal area, we meet with an astounding change, and
what appears to be a complete and unmistakable break in the line of
biological continuity.
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