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Updated: June 14, 2025
Thus we see that the Mammalia of Celebes are no less individual and remarkable than the birds, since three of the largest and most interesting species have no near allies in surrounding countries, but seem vaguely to indicate a relation to the African continent.
To know something of the early state of the world which we enjoy to have some evidences given to us that before human animals began to play their part here, wonderful monsters, part mammalia, part birds, part reptiles, gambolled upon the scene; that wingless birds stalked upon marshy grounds; that strange and ghastly lizards crawled upon our fruitful Kent; and gigantic fish floated in our tranquil waters, but no beautiful humming birds, majestic lions, and graceful horses only crawling and swimming life, everywhere preying, and the early sea-weed rising in the sea because the polypus wanted its food: to think of these things is to have some knowledge.
Falconer, who first examined them. Before these interesting inquiries were brought to a close, the joint labours of Professor Owen and Dr. Falconer had made it clear that twelve or more species of mammalia characterised this portion of the Middle Purbeck, most of them insectivorous or predaceous, varying in size from that of a mole to that of the common polecat, Mustela putorius.
For instance, among the mammalia the pachydermata, among the reptilia the salamander and newt, among the articulata the cephalopoda, are at present remarkably reduced; compare with the legions of ammonites and belemnites of the secondary period the small number of nautilus and cuttle-fish of the seas at the present day.
The sea, with its countless treasures, its myriads of fish, its numberless wrecks, its enormous mammalia, and not only all that nature supplied, but also all that man had lost in its depths, sufficed for every want of the prince and his crew and thus was his most ardent desire accomplished, never again to hold communication with the earth.
The embryos of wildcats and dogs, rabbits and rats, pigs, deer, and sheep, and of all other mammalia, possess similar structures. Thus they all pass through a stage which is found also in the development of reptiles, birds, and amphibia, a stage which corresponds to the fish throughout its life.
Revolutions like these in the physical geography of the countries bordering the Mediterranean, may well help us to understand the phenomena of the Palermo caves, and the presence in Sicily of African species of mammalia.
Layer of made ground, two feet thick, inside the grotto in which a few human bones, with entire bones of extinct and living species of animals, and many works of art were embedded. c. Layers of ashes and charcoal, six inches thick, with broken, burnt, and gnawed bones of extinct and Recent mammalia; also hearth-stones and works of art; no human bones. d.
It is exactly as if in the earliest geological epochs it had been concluded from the flora and fauna then existing that it was impossible for a fauna and flora ever to exist differing from them as widely as do the cryptogams from the conifers, or the mammalia from the mollusca.
These characteristics are: the absence all Mammalia except bats; and the occurrence of peculiar species of birds, insects, and land shells, which, though found nowhere else, are plainly related to those of the nearest land. Thus, we have an entire absence of Australian mammals, and the presence of only a few stragglers from the west which can be accounted for in the manner already indicated.
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