THE ANTELOPES AND OXEN. 173 



The Giraffes stand close to the Deer, not because 

 they have branched off from the deer, but because 

 the unknown ancestors on both sides showed a 

 disposition to certain reductions and convergences 

 of a similar kind. 



6. CAVICORNIA, HOLLOW HORNED ANIMALS. ANTELOPES 



AND OXEN. 



The horned Ruminants, which are grouped 

 round the Chamois, Sheep, and Oxen and hence 

 furnished with horn-cores rising from the frontal 

 bones, and a horn sheath would appear to any- 

 one to form a natural group. And even those who 

 have not studied the subject would undertake to 

 distinguish a Gazelle, as the representative of the 

 Antelopes, from an Ox. The gracefulness of its whole 

 appearance, more particularly of the horns, the 

 smallness of the head, the slender shape of the legs, 

 sharply distinguish the Antelopes from the Oxen, 

 whose horns stand at the outermost point of the 

 brow, whose skull is unwieldy in form, and whose 

 legs (in keeping with the rest of the skeleton) are 

 anything but graceful. However, when we examine 

 the different families in any good collection, we 

 shall find that by the side of the prevailing type 

 of the slim antelope, there are various kinds of 

 cow-shaped forms, with head and limbs in no way 



