EOCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT 107 



possessing this vast range. Like almost all other mammals, 

 the cougar (Felis concolor), which in all its essential habits 

 and traits remains the same, whether living in mountain, 

 open plain or forest, under arctic cold or tropical heat, has 

 yet been split up into several distinct species. 



The nearest Old World relations of the cougar are the lion 

 and tiger, both of which differ from it very strikingly in size, 

 habit and colour. It is perfectly obvious, therefore, that it 

 is not a geologically recent immigrant from Asia. Two very 

 closely allied species of large cats, moreover, have been dis- 

 covered in Pleistocene deposits in Argentina ; while the 

 cougar itself has left its remains, along with those of extinct 

 members of the cat tribe, in the Conard Fissure. Another 

 large cat (Pelis hillianus) has been found fossil by Professor 

 Cope in the Blanco formation of Texas, this being now looked 

 upon as middle Pliocene. Hence it is probable that the 

 ancestors of the cougar already flourished in North America 

 as well as in the southern continent in Pliocene times. The 

 facts of its recent distribution seem to point to its having 

 entered North America from the south, and it may pos- 

 sibly have done so in Pliocene times when the northern 

 continent became definitely (Connected with South America. 

 Further details as to its early history are still lacking. 



As we descend the mountains through the forest belt and 

 finally reach the foot-hills, we meet with two large ungulates 

 whose acquaintance we have not hitherto had an opportunity 

 of making. Both of these are confined to the western States, 

 and are well known to the hunters of the Eocky Mountain 

 region. The black-tail, or mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), 

 as it is often called on account of its big prominent ears, ; 

 seems at first sight not to be very different from the American 

 elk or wapiti, except in size. But the latter belongs to quite 

 a different genus. If we examine the antlers of the two more 

 carefully, we notice that the brow tines are lacking in the 

 mule deer. There are also distinctions in the skull, while 

 the lower parts of the metacarpal bones of the front limbs 

 are retained in the mule deer. The wapiti deer is descended 

 from an Old World stock which, as I explained (p. 68), 

 crossed over from Asia by a land bridge in Pliocene or early 

 Pleistocene times. In it only the upper metacarpals remain, 



