Game Animals of India, etc. 



fore and hind cannon-bones ot the musk-ox are indeed 

 remarkably short and wide, although not quite to the 

 same extent as in the takin. And since it is only in 

 these two ruminants and the Rocky Mountain goat 

 (Oreamnus) that this very marked shortness of both 

 cannon-bones occurs, it must be regarded as a feature 

 of importance. The wild goat, it is true, has a short 

 front cannon-bone, as Dr. Lonnberg remarks ; but 

 then the hind cannon-bone is very long, actually longer 

 indeed than in a wild sheep (Ovis orientalis) in which 

 the front cannon-bone greatly exceeds the correspond- 

 ing element of the goat in length. 



In connection with the relationships of the takin it 

 is important to refer to two extinct ruminants, Eucera- 

 therium and Preptoceras^ of which the remains have been 

 discovered in certain Californian caverns. That the 

 ancestors of these animals came from Asia is practically 

 certain ; and theirdescribers, Messrs. Furlongand Sinclair, 

 are of opinion that they present resemblances both to the 

 takin and the musk-ox, although not nearly related to 

 either. Probably, writes the former, " Preptoceras bears 

 somewhat the same degree of relationship to Ovibos that 

 Budorcas does " ; which is perhaps not a very lucid way 

 of putting matters when the nature of the latter rela- 

 tionship is just what we do not know. Still, there 

 seems a probability that the two extinct American 

 ruminants, together with the Rocky Mountain goat 

 and the musk-ox, are all descendants of an Asiatic 

 assemblage of ruminants of which the takin and 

 the serow are Old World survivors. The aforesaid 

 Siwalik Bucapra seems, however, to indicate that the 

 takin type was in existence at a relatively early date. 

 Possibly an extinct ruminant from the Pliocene Ter- 

 tiary deposits of Samos known as Criotherium which 

 has curiously bent horns, may be a member of the same 

 assemblage. 



On the whole, despite the criticisms of Dr. Lonnberg, 

 it seems probable that Messrs. Cockburn and Matschie 



i6o 



