MATTHEW, CLIMATE AND EVOLUTION 



247 



T.VBLE XT. — Distribution of Cervidw and Pro-Cervid TraguUnes 



The antelopes, on the other hand, while also appearing fairly early in 

 the European geologic record and abundant and well advanced in south- 

 west and southern Asia as early as that record is revealed to our eyes, are 

 imperfectly represented in North America — first appearing in the Plio- 

 cene and not widely varied even to-day, while they have not reached South 

 America at all. They are to-day most abundant and varied in Africa. 

 From these facts, I infer that their center of dispersal was well to the 



*• Family Hypertragulidse, but Leptomeryx is structurally ancestral to American 

 Cervidse. 



^ This group is referred generally to the Tragulidse, but th? common characters are 

 persistent primitive features, and I regard it as a little altered survivor of the ancestors 

 of the Cervidse. Tragulidae as here limited are a distinct phylum, primitive in many • 

 features hut aberrant in others. 



*2 Family Tragulidae as usually referred, but affinities are with Hywrnosthits, not with 

 Tragiihis; the group may fairly be regarded as ancestral to the Cervida\ while the 

 traguline group certainly is not. 



