MATTHBW. CLIMATE AM) E\ OLUTION 



249 



west and south in Asia (c/. rhinoceroses). The sheep and goats are a 

 comparatively recent development of the highest antelopes and must be 

 assigned a center of dispersal somewhat more to the nortli. 



The cattle are of comparati\el\- recent appearance in Europe, as also 

 in America. Judging from their present distribution, one would say 

 that their center of dispersal was in southeastern Asia, the southward 

 slopes of the Himalayas. 



Fig. 



— Dixtribiitinn (if the Giraffes, e-r'nsting (solid black) and extinct (shaded) 



On present evidence their dispersal center would appear to have been in south central 

 Asia. But the affinities of the Tertiary Giraffidie to other contemporary ruminants need 

 careful and judicial reconsideration. 



The giraffes have approximately the same center of dispersal as the 

 antelopes. This inference from their modern distribution conforms with 

 the geological record. They appear suddenly in the upper Miocene of 

 Europe, but an ancestral series is found in India as far back as the upper 

 Oligocene.*^^ 



83 See O. E. Pilgrim : Ree. Geol. Sur. Ind., vol. xliii, p. 301. 191.'?. 



