are briefly and accurately defined as, "hollow-horned ruminants;" and, although they present wide differences in external form, they grade so insensibly into each other, that no satisfactory definition of the smaller family groups can be found. As a whole they are almost confined to the great Old World continent, only a few forms extending along the highlands and prairies of the Nearctic region; while one peculiar type is found in Celebes, an island which is almost intermediate between the Oriental and Australian regions. In each of the Old World regions there are found a characteristic set of types. Antelopes prevail in the Ethiopian region; sheep and goats in the Palæarctic; while the oxen are perhaps best developed in the Oriental region.

Sir Victor Brooke, who has paid special attention to this family, divides them into 13 sub-families, and I here adopt the arrangement of the genera and species which he has been so good as to communicate to me in MSS.

Sub-family I. BOVINE (6 genera, 13 species). This group is one of the best marked in the family. It comprises the Oxen and Buffaloes with their allies, and has a distribution very nearly the same as that of the entire family. The genera are as follows: Bos (1 sp.), now represented by our domestic cattle, the descendants of the Bos primigenius, which ranged over a large part of Central Europe in the time of the Romans. The Chillingham wild cattle are supposed to be the nearest approach to the original species. Bison (2 sp.), one still wild in Poland and the Caucasus; the other in North America, ranging over the prairies west of the Mississippi, and on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains (Plate XIX., vol. ii., p. 129). Bibos (3 sp.), the Indian wild cattle, ranging over a large part of the Oriental region, from Southern India to Assam, Burmah, the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, and Java. Poephagus (1 sp.), the yak, confined to the high plains of Western Thibet. Bubalus (5 sp.), the buffaloes, of which three species are African, ranging over all the continental parts of the Ethiopian region; one Northern and Central Indian; and the domesticated animal in South Europe and North Africa.

Anoa (1 sp.), the small wild cow of Celebes,

a very peculiar form more nearly allied to the buffaloes than to any other type of oxen.

Sub-family II. TRAGELAPHINÆ (3 genera, 11 species). The Bovine Antelopes are large and handsome animals, mostly Ethiopian, but extending into the adjacent parts of the Palæarctic and Oriental regions. The genera are: Oreas (2 sp.), elands, inhabiting all Tropical and South Africa. Tragelaphus (8 sp.), including the bosch-bok, kudu, and other large antelopes, ranges over all Tropical and South Africa (Plate IV., vol. i., p. 261). Portax (1 sp.) India, but rare in Madras and north of the Ganges.

Sub-family III. ORYGINÆ (2 genera, 5 species). Oryx (4 sp.) is a desert genus, ranging over all the African deserts to South Arabia and Syria; Addax (1 sp.) inhabits North Africa, North Arabia, and Syria.

Sub-family IV. HIPPOTRAGINÆ (1 genus, 3 species). The Sable Antelopes, Hippotragus, form an isolated group inhabiting the open country of Tropical Africa and south to the Cape.

Sub-family V. GAZELLINE (6 genera, 23 species). This is a group of small or moderate-sized animals, most abundant in the deserts on the borders of the Palearctic, Oriental, and Ethiopian regions. Gazella (17 sp.) is typically a Palearctic desert group, ranging over the great desert plateaus of North Africa, from Senegal and Abyssinia to Syria, Persia, Beloochistan, and the plains of India, with one outlying species in South Africa. Procapra (2 sp.), Western Thibet and Mongolia to about 110° east longitude. Antilope (1 sp.) inhabits all the plains of India. Epyceros (1 sp.) the pallah, inhabits the open country of South and South-east Africa. Saiga (1 sp.) a singular sheep-faced antelope, which inhabits the steppes of Eastern Europe and Western Asia from Poland to the Irtish River, south of 55° north latitude. (Plate II., vol. i., p. 218.) Panthalops (1 sp.) confined to the highlands of Western Thibet and perhaps Turkestan.

Sub-family VI. ANTILOCAPRINE (1 genus, 1 species), Antilocapra, the prong-horned antelope, inhabit both sides of the Rocky Mountains, extending north to the Saskatchewan and

Columbia River, west to the coast range of California, and east to the Missouri. Its remarkable deciduous horns seem to indicate a transition to the Cervida. (Plate XIX., vol. ii., p. 129.)

Sub-family VII. CERVICAPRINE (5 genera, 21 species). This group of Antelopes is wholly confined to the continental portion of the Ethiopian region. The genera are: Cervicapra (4 sp.), Africa, south of the equator and Abyssinia; Kobus (6 sp.), grassy plains and marshes of Tropical Africa; Pelea (1 sp.), South Africa; Nanotragus (9 species), Africa, south of the Sahara; Neotragus (1 sp.) Abyssinia and East Africa.

Sub-family VIII. CEPHALOPHINE (2 genera, 24 species), Africa and India; Cephalophus (22 sp.), continental Ethiopian region; Tetraceros (2 sp.) hilly part of all India, but rare north of the Ganges.

Sub-family IX. ALCEPHALINE (2 genera, 11 species), large African Antelopes, one species just entering the Palearctic region. The genera are: Alcephalus (9 sp.) all Africa and north-east to Syria; Catoblepas (2 sp.), gnus, Africa, south of the Equator.

Sub-region X. BUDORCINE (1 genus, 2 species) Budorcas inhabits the high Himalayas from Nepal to East Thibet.

Sub-family XI. RUPICAPRINÆ (1 genus, 2 species) the Chamois, Rupicapra, inhabit the high European Alps from the Pyrenees to the Caucasus. (Plate I., vol. i., p. 195.)

Sub-family XII. NEMORHEDINÆ (2 genera, 10 species). These goat-like Antelopes inhabit portions of the Palearctic and Oriental regions, as well as the Rocky Mountains in the Nearctic region. Nemorhedus (9 sp.) ranges from the Eastern Himalayas to N. China and Japan, and south to Formosa, the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. Aplocerus (1 sp.), the mountain goat of the trappers, inhabits the northern parts of California and the Rocky Mountains.

Sub-family XIII. CAPRINE (2 genera, 23 species). The Goats and Sheep form an extensive series, highly characteristic of the Palearctic region, but with an outlying species on the Neilgherries in Southern India, and one in the Rocky Mountains and California. The genera are Capra (22 sp.) and Ovibos (1 sp.).

The genus Capra consists of several sub-groups which have been named as genera, but it is unnecessary here to do more than divide them into "Goats and Ibexes on the one hand and "Sheep "'on the other-each comprising 11 species. The former range over all the South European Alps from Spain to the Caucasus; to Abyssinia, Persia, and Scinde; over the high Himalayas to E. Thibet and N. China; with an outlying species in the Neilgherries. The latter are only found in the mountains of Corsica, Sardinia, and Crete, in Europe; in Asia Minor, Persia, and in Central and North-Eastern Asia, with one somewhat isolated species in the Atlas mountains; while in America a species is found in the Rocky Mountains and the coast range of California. Ovibos (1 sp.), the musk-sheep, inhabits Arctic America north of lat. 60; but it occurs fossil in Post-glacial gravels on the Yena and Obi in Siberia, in Germany and France along with the Mammoth and with flint implements, and in caves of the Reindeer period; also in the brick earth in the south of England, associated with Rhinoceros megarhinus and Elephas antiquus.

Extinct Bovidae.-In the caverns and diluviums of Europe, of the Post-Pliocene period, the remains are found of extinct species. of Bos, Bison, and Capra; and in the caverns of the south of France Rupicapra, and an antelope near Hippotragus. Bos and Bison also occur in Pliocene deposits. In the Miocene of Europe, the only remains are antelopes closely allied to existing species, and these are especially numerous in Greece, where remains referred to two living and four extinct genera have been discovered. In the Miocene of India numerous extinct species of Bos, and two extinct genera, Hemibos and Amphibos, have been found, one of them at a great elevation in Thibet. Antelopes, allied to living Indian species, are chiefly found in the Nerbudda deposits.

In North America, the only bovine remains are those of a Bison, and a sheep or goat, in the Post-pliocene deposits; and of two species of musk-sheep, sometimes classed in a distinct genus Bootherium, from beds of the same age in Arkansas and Ohio. Casoryx, from the Pliocene of Nebraska, is supposed to be allied to the antelopes and to deer.

In the caves of Brazil remains of two animals said to be antelopes, have been discovered. They are classed by Gervais in the genera Antilope and Leptotherium, but the presence of true antelopes in S. America at this period is so improbable, that there is probably some error of identification.

The extinct family Sivatherida, containing the extraordinary and gigantic four-horned Sivatherium and Bramatherium, of the Siwalik deposits, are most nearly allied to the antelopes.

From the preceding facts we may conclude, that the great existing development of the Bovidae is comparatively recent. The type may have originated early in the Miocene period, the oxen being at first most tropical, while the antelopes inhabited the desert zone a little further north. The sheep and goats seem to be the most recent development of the bovine type, which was probably long confined to the Eastern Hemisphere.

General Remarks on the Distribution of the Ungulata. With the exception of the Australian region, from which this order of mammalia is almost entirely wanting, the Ungulata are almost universally distributed over the continental parts of all the other regions. Of the ten families, 7 are Ethiopian, 6 Oriental, 5 Palearctic, 4 Neotropical, and 3 Nearctic. The Ethiopian region owes its superiority to the exclusive possession of the hippopotamus and giraffe, both of which inhabited the Palearctic and Oriental regions in Miocene times. The excessive poverty of the Nearctic region in this order is remarkable; the swine being represented only by Dicotyles in its extreme southern portion, while the Bovidæ are restricted to four isolated species. alone are fairly well represented. But, during the Eocene and Miocene periods, North America was wonderfully rich in varied forms of Ungulates, of which there were at least 8 or 9 families; while we have reason to believe that during the same periods the Ethiopian region was excessively poor, and that it probably received the ancestors of all its existing families from Europe or Western Asia in later Miocene or Pliocene times. Many types that once abounded in both Europe and North America are now preserved only in South America and Central or Tropical Asia,-as

Deer