560 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



The Tertiary giraffes and their allies of India form the 

 subject of a monograph by Mr. Guy Pilgrim, published in the 

 Palceontologia Indica (new series, vol. iv. No. i). The list of 

 Siwalik representatives of the group is a long one 4 and Mr. 

 Pilgrim has brought the available information up to date. He 

 divides the Siwalik species into brachycephalic (short-skulled) 

 and dolichocephalic (long-skulled) types ; and he has likewise 

 been enabled to throw light on the respective geological 

 horizons of the various forms. The most generalised Siwalik 

 representatives of the group are described by the author under 

 the name Progiraffa but as one of them was, for a time, called 

 Propalceomeryx by the present writer, the latter designation is 

 clearly entitled to stand. 



By general consent the group is now taken to include the 

 Indian Sivatherium, Bramatherium, and Hydaspitherium and the 

 European Helladotherium ; but this was not always the case and 

 it may be recalled that, as a young man, the present writer 

 had a hard fight against the authority of the late Prof. 

 Riitimeyer, of Basle, to get this recognised. Rutimeyer con- 

 tended that the great columnar pedicle from which the antler- 

 like horns of Bramatherium and Hydaspitherium take origin is 

 akin to that of the hartebeests (Bubalis) and consequently that 

 the former are antelopes. That the two structures are identical 

 in general character may be freely admitted but it does not 

 therefore follow that they indicate genetic affinity between the 

 animals in which they occur; as a matter of fact, they are 

 examples of parallelism in development, a factor in the evolution 

 of structures which had not been recognised at the date of the 

 aforesaid discussion. 



The wonderful development attained by the camel group 

 during the Tertiary period in North America has been further 

 illustrated in the course of the year by Messrs. F. B. Loomis and 

 O. A. Peterson. In a paper by the former writer on the camels 

 of the Miocene Harrison beds {Amer. J. Sci. ser. 4, vol. xxxi- 

 pp. 65-70), for instance, additional characters are given of some 

 of the extinct genera, with descriptions of three new species. 

 The Harrison beds indicate a dry upland country, where 

 camels were represented abundantly by species of the genus 

 Stenomylus and less commonly by those of Oxydactylus. Both 

 these have the complete mammalian series of forty- four teeth ; 

 the former being characterised by the tall crowns of its cheek- 



