8 5 6 THE UNGULATES, OR HOOFED MAMMALS 



Antelopes (in the proper sense of the word) are strictly confined to 

 Distribution the Qld Wor id ; and by far the greater majority of them are now re- 

 stricted to Africa, with the adjacent regions of Syria and Arabia. Indeed, if we ex- 

 cept the widely-spread group of gazelles, the only antelopes found beyond those 

 regions are the black buck, four-horned antelope, and nylghau of India, the saiga of 

 Tartary, and the chiru of Tibet. It was not, however, always so, since in early 

 times antelopes of African types were distributed over a large portion of India and 

 Southern Europe; and it is still one of the problems of zoology to account satis- 

 factorily for the disappearance of these animals from the latter regions. The intro- 



SKEI.ETON OF THE ADDAX. 



duction of antelopes into Africa appears to have been comparatively recent; but 

 having once made good their footing on that continent they multiplied, both as re- 

 gards individuals and species, in a manner quite unparalleled in any other region, 

 the total number of African antelopes exceeding ninety. Unfortunately, this 

 profusion and exuberance of ruminant life, which, but a few decades back, charac- 

 terized the dark continent, is rapidly disappearing before the advance of civiliza- 

 tion. 



The eland belongs to a group of large and almost exclusively Afri- 

 can antelopes, characterized by the general absence of horns in the 

 females, and by those of the male being devoid of rings, angulated in front, and 



Eland 



