drainage of the higher land, a combination of conditions is provided by which a varied fauna may secure an approximately complete representation in fossils. Such localities as those described by Captain Johnston in his Nyassaland are suggested. He says: "At the close of the dry season when the tall grass has been burnt down and there is little or no cover for the game to hide in, it is really a remarkable spectacle as seen from the deck of a steamer, to watch the great herds of big animals wandering over these savannahs in search of the young verdure springing up amid the charred stubble of the old grass. With an opera glass you may distinguish waterbuck, gnu, buffalo, eland, pallah, reed-buck and zebra, and occasionally some dark blue-gray blobs, much larger than the other specks and forms which are in their vicinity, turn out to be elephants." Again he says" game in the shape of antelopes and buffaloes was evidently abundant, and no doubt was attracted to the vicinity of this brackish pool by the flakes of salt which remained on the soil when the water had evaporaand the game in its turn was followed by hyenas, lions and vultures."5

ted;

In geological time such localities would have afforded a rich commixture of fossil remains if the circumstances favorable for the deposition of a protecting stratum of earth existed. Yet in all instances the social relations of the animals have an importance, and those social relations are somewhat modified by the topography of the country they inhabit. The wide plains of south-eastern or subcentral Africa, with an unchecked communication for miles, numerous rivers and rich vegetation,

'Such scenes described by Capt. Johnston are closely imitated in the picture, drawn by W. Boyd Dawkins, of the Bristol Channel in plistocene times, when it was a fertile plain "supporting herds of reindeer, horses and bisons, many elephants and rhinoceroses, and now and then being traversed by a stray hippopotamus, which would afford abundant prey to the lions, bears and hyenas inhabiting all the accessible caves, as well as to their enemy and destroyer, man." See also Dr. E. Holub's "Seven Years in S. Africa," Vol. I, p. 267.

5 See also East Africa and its Big Game by Sir John C. Willoughby, wherein he describes the open plain with buffalo, zebra, hartebeest, eland, rhinoceros, ostrich, Grant's antelope.s teinbock and wart-hog scattered over it, and in another place where he saw lions, rhinoceros, lesser kudu, wild dogs, hyenas, cheetah, water-buck and zebra, the total seen amounting to nineteen varieties."