6 Oxen 



and enamel enclosed in the investing layer of cement. The bony cores 

 of the horns are completely honeycombed with a number ot large and 

 irregularly shaped cavities. Skull without any pits or lissures below the 

 eyes ; the sockets of the eyes generally not prominent ; the premaxillte 

 sometimes reaching the nasal bones. Canon-bones short and stout. 



The group appears to be one ot the most specialised and advanced 

 of all the ruminants, as is indicated by the structure ot the cheek-teeth, 

 and its comparatively late appearance in time. Their nearest relatives 

 are not easy to determine. The absence ot horns in the temales ot some 

 of the extinct species points to descent trom a group in which a similar 

 condition obtained. On the other hand, their molar teeth are very similar 

 to those of the oryx and sable antelope group, and unlike those ot all 

 other ruminants. And as this character is not very likely to have 

 originated independently, a relationship to that group is suggested. Such 

 a connection is in harmony with the absence of face-glands in the group of 

 antelopes in question, and the small size of the vacuities in the skull below 

 the eyes. But, it may be urged, in these antelopes horns are developed 

 in both sexes, and the muzzle is hairy. The latter difference is but ot 

 little importance, as it is quite probable that a naked muzzle is a teature 

 of comparatively modern acquisition. With regard to the former, it there 

 be any relationship between the two groups, the only explanation would 

 seem to be that in the ancestral antelopes the females were hornless, and 

 that the oxen branched off before horns were acquired by that sex. 



Distribution. — Nearly all the habitable parts of the globe, with the 

 exception of the Australasian and Neotropical regions, but represented 

 in the New World only by the American bison and some nearly allied 

 fossil torms. In time, dating in India from the Pliocene epoch, and 

 represented in Europe in the latter portion of that epoch. The numerical 

 abundance of species, both living and extinct, in the Old World, and 

 especially Asia, points to the conclusion that the group originated in the 



