[Illustration:  Fig. 239.—­Different views of the shell of Hyalea Orbignyana, a Miocene Pteropod.]

The Fishes of the Miocene Period are very abundant but of little special importance.  Besides the remains of Bony Fishes, we meet in the marine deposits of this age with numerous pointed teeth belonging to different kinds of Sharks.  Some of the genera of these—­such as Carcharodon (fig. 241), Oxyrhina (fig. 240), Lamna, and Galeocerdo—­are very widely distributed, ranging through both the Old and New Worlds; and some of the species attain gigantic dimensions.

Amongst the Amphibians we meet with distinctly modern types, such as Frogs (Rana) and Newts or Salamanders.  The most celebrated of the latter is the famous Andrias Scheuchzeri (fig. 242), discovered in the year 1725 in the fresh-water Miocene deposits of OEningen, in Switzerland.  The skeleton indicates an animal nearly five feet in length; and it was originally described by Scheuchzer, a Swiss physician, in a dissertation published in 1731, as the remains of one of the human beings who were in existence at the time of the Noachian Deluge.  Hence he applied to it the name of Homo diluvii testis.  In reality, however, as shown by Cuvier, we have here the skeleton of a huge Newt, very closely allied to the Giant Salamander (Menopoma maxima) of Java.

[Illustration:  Fig. 240.—­Tooth of Oxyrhina xiphodon.  Miocene.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 241.—­Tooth of Carcharodon productus.  Miocene.]

The remains of Reptiles are far from uncommon in the Miocene rocks, consisting principally of Chelonians and Crocodilians.  The Land-tortoises (Testudinidoe) make their first appearance during this period.  The most remarkable form of this group is the huge Colossochelys Atlas of the Upper Miocene deposits of the Siwalik Hills in India, described by Dr Falconer and Sir Proby Cautley.  Far exceeding any living Tortoise in its dimensions, this enormous animal is estimated as having had a length of about twenty feet, measured from the tip of the snout to the extremity of the tail, and to have stood upwards of seven feet high.  All the details of its organisation, however, prove that it must have been “strictly a land animal, with herbivorous habits, and probably of the most inoffensive nature.”  The accomplished palaeontologist just quoted, shows further that some of the traditions of the Hindoos would render it not improbable that this colossal Tortoise had survived into the earlier portion of the human period.

Of the Birds of the Miocene period it is sufficient to remark that though specifically distinct, they belong, so far as known, wholly to existing groups, and therefore present no points of special palaeontological interest.