Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/88

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EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN.
[CHAP. III.

a second, with small upright antlers of a shape unlike any living species (Fig. 9), flourished in France and probably also in Spain.


Fig. 9.—Cervus Matheroni, Gervais, Mont Léberon, 1/3.
The plains of Pikermi, then stretching southwards from the rocky mountains of Attica far into the area now covered by the Mediterranean, supported countless troops of antelopes, varying in size and form, and, for the most part, allied to those of Africa; one, the Helladotherium, was of large size and allied to the giraffe; this last animal was also present. Numerous apes (Mesopithecus) inhabited the woods, intermediate in character between the Semnopithecus on the one hand, and the Macacus or Barbary ape on the other, being related to the one in the form of its head, and to the other in the length of its limbs. A large ape also has been met with at Eppelsheim. Thus in the upper Meiocene age the range of the Quadrumana extended from the shores of the Mediterranean, at least as far to the north as 49° 43' north latitude, or 14° farther north beyond the present northern limit of the old world apes.

The Edentata (sloths, ant-eaters, etc.) also were repre-