ANTELOPES. 377 



pardalis giraffa, is known, ■which ranges over the greater part of 

 the grass-covered plains of East Central and South Africa. An 

 extinct species of the genus, C. Attica, which occurs in the Mio- 

 cene deposits of Greece, appears to have rivalled or fully equalled 

 the modern form in size. Other allied species have been described 

 from the Siwalik Hills of India. The Helladotherium, an animal 

 of less ele^'ated proportions than the giraffe, but closely related to 

 it, roamed during the Miocene, or early Pliocene, epoch over the 

 south of Europe, from France to Greece, and across to India. With 

 the same family are possibly to be placed also the Siwalik genera 

 Brahmatheriura, Vislmutherium, and Sivatherium, the last a huge 

 antelopine form, referred by most zoologists to the true antelopes. 



The antelopes, whose special distribution has been considered 

 in connection with the several zoogeographical regions of the earth's 

 surface, constitute by far the most extensive group of the Ungulata, 

 there being probably not less than one hundred distinct species. 

 The greater number of these belong to the continent of Africa, 

 where they inhabit as well the desert tracts as the open plains and 

 forests, from the Sahara to the Cape, and from Senegal to the Nile. 

 Among the better kno^vn of these forms are the springbok, blesbok, 

 bontebok, hartebeest, buschbok, waterbok, koodoo, oryx, gemsbok, 

 klipspringer, gnu, and eland, the last a bubaline form equalling in 

 size a large ox. The opposite extreme in the series is presented by 

 the western guevi, which barely exceeds the dimensions of a rabbit. 

 The fifteen (?) or more Asiatic species, whose combined range com- 

 prises very nearly the entire extent of the continent, with the islands 

 of Japan, Formosa, and Sumatra, are nearly all distinct from the 

 African, and even the generic types that are held in common are 

 limited almost exclusively to such forms, as Oryx, Addax, and 

 Gazella, whose domain embraces the almost contiguous desert tracts 

 of Northeast Africa and Arabia. 



Europe has but two antelopine species, the Alpine chamois and 

 the saiga, or steppe antelope, the latter of which may perhaps with 

 more propriety be considered an Asiatic species, whose range ex- 

 tends over Russia to the confines of Poland. North America is 

 equally deficient with Europe, holding likewise but two species — 

 the prong-horn (Antilocapra) and Rocky Mountain goat (Aplocerus) 

 — while in South America the family or group is entirely wanting. 



The remains of antelopes, if we except certain doubtful forms 



