vi] DISTRIBUTION OF SELECTED GROUPS 133 



Mountain goat, which is really a modified chamois, 

 the big-horn sheep, and the bison, all of which are 

 Pleistocene immigrants to North America. Antelopes 

 are abundant in continental Africa, few in Central 

 Asia, whence the steppe-loving saiga-antelope visited 

 interglacial Europe. 



The ' Mountain Antelopes' have now a very dis- 

 continuous distribution. Rupicapra, the chamois, 

 ranges from the Cantabrian mountains through the 

 Pyrenees and Alps to the Caucasus ; with somewhat 

 distant relations in India and Central Asia ; and 

 with Haploceras, the ' Rocky Mountain goat.' Sheep 

 and goats are natives of Asia and of Mediterranean 

 countries and islands ; one goat lives in Abyssinia 

 and two big-horn sheep, allied to the Argali, etc. of 

 Asia occur in Western North America. The bovine 

 beasts, or cattle proper, are also very limited in 

 numbers of species. The yak is confined to the 

 high mountain ranges of Central Asia. The scanty 

 survivors of the two bisons linger, the one in North 

 America, the other in the Caucasus and in Poland. 

 The bantengs are Oriental from Northern India to 

 Java. Of the buffaloes, one inhabits India, another 

 is confined to the Philippine Islands, and two others 

 live in Africa. Celebes has the peculiar rather 

 ancient anoa. The ancestor of our domestic cattle 

 is lost in obscurity, although probably allied to the 

 aurochs (Bos primigenius) of medieval Central Europe. 



