American Big Game in its Haunts 



This inference is drawn from the fact that 

 the predominant fauna of America in the Middle 

 and Upper Miocene Age and in the Pliocene was 

 closely analogous to the still extant fauna of 

 Africa. It is true we had no real antelopes in this 

 country, in fact none of the bovines, and no 

 giraffes ; but there was a camel which my colleague 

 Matthew has surnamed the "giraffe camel," extra- 

 ordinarily similar to the giraffe. There were no 

 hippopotami, no hyraces. All these peculiarly 

 African animals, of African origin, I believe, 

 found their way into Europe at least as far as the 

 Sivalik Hills of India, but never across the Bering 

 Sea Isthmus. The only truly African animal 

 which reached America, and which flourished here 

 in an extraordinary manner, was the elephant, or 

 rather the mastodon, if we speak of the elephant 

 in its Miocene stage of evolution. However, the 

 resemblance between America and Africa is 

 abundantly demonstrated by the presence of great 

 herds of horses, of rhinoceroses, both long and 

 short limbed, of camels in great variety, including 

 the giraffe-like type which was capable of brows- 

 ing on the higher branches of trees, of small ele- 

 phants, and of deer, which in adaptation to some- 

 what arid conditions imitated the antelopes in 

 general structure. 



3S6 



