Fig. 192.—Dinornis, and Bos.
Two gigantic birds seem to have lived in New Zealand during the Quaternary epoch. The Dinornis, which, if we may judge from the tibia, which is upwards of three feet long, and from its eggs, which are much larger than those of the Ostrich, must have been of most extraordinary size for a bird. In [Fig. 192] an attempt is made to restore this fearfully great bird, the Dinornis. As to the Epiornis, its eggs only have been found.
On the opposite page ([Plate XXVIII.]) an attempt is made to represent the appearance of Europe during the epoch we have under consideration. The Bear is seated at the mouth of its den—the cave (thus reminding us of the origin of its name of Ursus spelæus), where it gnaws the bones of the Elephant. Above the cavern the Hyæna spelæa looks out, with savage eye, for the moment when it will be prudent to dispute possession of these remains with its formidable rival. The great Wood-stag, with other great animals of the epoch, occupies the farthest shore of a small lake, where some small hills rise out of a valley crowned with the trees and shrubs of the period. Mountains, recently upheaved, rise on the distant horizon, covered with a mantle of frozen snow, reminding us that the glacial period is approaching, and has already begun to manifest itself.
All these fossil bones, belonging to the great Mammalia which we have been describing, are found in the Quaternary formation; but the most abundant of all are those of the Elephant and the Horse. The extreme profusion of the bones of the Mammoth, crowded into the more recently formed deposits of the globe, is only surpassed by the prodigious quantity of the bones of the Horse which are buried in the same beds. The singular abundance of the remains of these two animals proves that, during the Quaternary epoch, the earth gave nourishment to immense herds of the Horse and the Elephant. It is probable that from one pole to the other, from the equator to the two extremities of the axis of the globe, the earth must have formed a vast and boundless prairie, while an immense carpet of verdure covered its whole surface; and such abundant pastures would be absolutely necessary to sustain these prodigious numbers of herbivorous animals of great size.
The mind can scarcely realise the immense and verdant plains of this earlier world, animated by the presence of an infinity of such inhabitants. In its burning temperature, Pachyderms of monstrous forms, but of peaceful habits, traversed the tall vegetation, composed of grasses of all sorts. Deer of gigantic size, their heads ornamented with enormous horns, escorted the heavy herds of the Mammoth; while the Horse, small in size and compact of form, galloped and frisked round these magnificent horizons of verdure which no human eye had yet contemplated.
Nevertheless, all was not quiet and tranquil in the landscapes of the ancient world. Voracious and formidable carnivorous animals waged a bloody war on the inoffensive herds. The Tiger, the Lion, and the ferocious Hyæna; the Bear, and the Jackal, there selected their prey. On the opposite page an endeavour is made to represent the great animals among the Edentates which inhabited the American plains during the Quaternary epoch ([Plate XXIX]). We observe there the Glyptodon, the Megatherium, the Mylodon, and, along with them, the Mastodon. A small Ape (the Orthopithecus), which first appeared in the Miocene period, occupies the branch of a tree in the landscape. The vegetation is that of tropical America at the present time.
The deposits of this age, which are of later date than the Crag, and of earlier date than the Boulder Clay, with its fragments of rocks frequently transported from great distances, are classed under the term “pre-glacial.”
After the deposition of the Forest Bed, which is seen overlying the Crag for miles between high and low-water mark, on the shore west of Cromer, in Norfolk, there was a general reduction of temperature, and a period of intense cold, known as the “glacial period,” seems to have set in, during which a great part of what is now the British Islands was covered with a thick coating of ice, and probably united with the Continent.