Discourses: Biological & Geological: EssaysHuxley, Thomas Henry
Science
Discourses: Biological & Geological: Essays
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Biology; Geology
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 specialised; while its Miocene ally is more so, and the
specialisation 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 tine 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 _Carivora_, 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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