u;i 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



RUMiNAXTS continued — musk-deer — chevbotains — anoplotheres. 



Musk-Deer (Moschid.^). (Map 31.) In his monograph of the Mnsk-deer and Chcvrotains Dr. 

 Alphonse Milne-Edwards* has satisfactorily shown that the species of which they have usually been 

 composed should be diA*ided into two sections, the one consisting of the true Musk-deer of Northern 

 and Central Asia, the other of a small groujj of ruminants of Trojiical Asia, which he has denominated 

 Tragulid^b, after the genus Trac;ulus, of which they chiefly consist. Of the true Musk-deer, which is 

 distinguished by secretion of the musk of commerce, there is only one species (Moschus jioschiferus). 

 It is allied to the true Deer, but is distinguished from them by the absence of horns and the 

 presence of the musk-bag. Several species have been described, but these are all referred by Dr. 

 Milue-Edwards and Professor Brandt to one species, of which they are climatal varieties. Its range 

 extends throughout Central Asia, fiom the Altai to the basin of the Amour and shores of the 

 Pacific, and southwards through Tartarj' and Mongolia, Cashmir, Thibet, to the interior of Siam. 

 It seems a question whether the extinct genus, Dichobune, remains of two or three small Species 

 of which have been found in the eocene beds of the Paris basin, should be placed in this 

 family, or among the Axoplotherid.k. I have placed it amongst the latter, but there are 

 sufficient points of resemblance to both to allow it without much imputation of error to be placed in 

 either. We have seen that there was jirobably a passage from Europe to Australia, by south-east 

 Asia in the eocene times, by which the eocene flora .sjjreud all the way from the one to the other. 

 Here we seem to have an eocene mammalian form reaching almost, but not cpiite so far, stopping 

 at the Indian Archipelago and subsisting there until the present age. It seems to have sent off 

 a shoot (Hyomoschus) which had reached Africa. It may have lived in numbers in Asia until 

 the glacial epoch swept them away, and only one altered t^-pe, the Mosciiu.s moschiferus, 

 remains to show where they had been. 



The representative of the Musk-deer in Africa is an aberrant species named HvoMOSCHrs 

 AQUATicrs ; inhal)itiiig the west coast of tropical Africa from Senegal to the Gaboon. Its name 

 implies that it is supposed to be an animal with aquatic habits, but this seems doubtful, 

 for the late Earl of Derby, who had living specimens in his menagerie at Knowsley, found that 

 they took no notice of the water, t Another species inhabited the south of France in the miocene 

 times, remains of which have been found in the miocene formations of Sansans in the department 

 of Gers. The chief structural peculiarity of the IIyo:moschus consists of the metacarpal bones not 

 being united, as in other ruminants, to form the cannon bone, an additional point of resemblance 



* Dr. A. Milne-Edwahl'S, op. cit. See also "Nat. lli.st. Rev." Oct. 18fJ4, p. 49 j. 

 f " Knowsley Meuageric," p. 22, 1850. 



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