EINAR LÖNNBERG, AN ATOM Y OF THE RUMINANTS. 21 



reduction of the peripheric coil of the colon or a shortening 

 of the portion between the central spiral and the ansa di- 

 staHs, which thus is the direct anatomical or morphological 

 cause of the recorded fact. 



Tlie peripheric coil is, however, an organ which is found 

 not only in the Cavicornia but, as has been recorded above, 

 it is present in Antilocapra, and in the Cervidoe too, for in- 

 stance in the Elk and the Red Deer (8). This proves it to 

 be an old characteristic which must have originated in the 

 ancestors of the present Ruminants and its constant absence 

 in one subfamily is therefore a feature of great taxonomic 

 importance. 



The only Ruminant in which I have found the relation 

 in length between the small and the large intestine to re- 

 semble that of the subfamily Bovince is Covnochceies (7) in 

 w^hich the length of the large intestine is only about 25 7o of 

 that of the small one. The last coil which corresponds to 

 the peripheric coil of other Antelopes is not wholly reduced 

 but evidently shortened. This could, of course, have taken 

 place independently in the ancestors of Bovince and those of 

 the Gnu, but it seems more likely, especially when other 

 characteristics are taken into account that both have a, not 

 very distant, common origin as I have expressed before (7).^ 



WiNGE (9) counts Connochcetes to the, by him formed, 

 Tragelaphus group, to which he counts a great number of 

 genera of Antelopes, but I cannot agree with him in this 

 respect. The genera enumerated may in some respects stånd 

 on the same stage of development — Winge mentions seve- 

 ral characteristics shared by the lowest members — but with 

 regard to others they differ so widely that a close genetic kin- 

 ship cannot be assumed. Within the group mentioned Winge 

 arranges, however, smaller series which appear to be quite, 

 natural. These agree also nearly with the arrangements by 

 Flower and Lydekker and by Sclater and Thomas. One 

 of these corresponds to the subfamily Buhalidinm of Sclater 



^ The lumping together of Ovihos, Budorcas and Connochcetes by 

 Knottnerus-Meyer (Arch. f. Naturgesch. Jahrg. 73, Berlin 1907) while Bu- 

 halis is put in another »family» does not need to be discussed as these 

 three genera have very little in common except that they all are Cavi- 

 cornia with curved horns. But it is worthy analogy to another »family» 

 ■>■> Giraff idce''-> formed by the same author containing Tetraceros, Antilocapra. 

 Boselaphus, Okapia and Giraffa. 



