68 INTRODUCTION. 



make the whole still more inexplicable, it may be 

 added, that no fossil remains of any of the genus 

 exist, excepting, perhaps, of one to all appearance 

 belonging to the domestic sheep found under ques- 

 tionable conditions in the Devonshire deposits.* 



If the Argali, therefore, are all of the same 

 species, they must have been separated during the 

 great diluvian catastrophe, at the time the species of 

 rhinoceros, of buffalo, tiger, and others, found in the 

 Indian Islands, were likewise separated from the 

 continent, and placed in locations where species un- 

 known to Asia, such as the Tapir and Marsupiata, 

 still exist, who have congeners only in South Ame- 

 rica. The more we pursue these reflections, the 

 greater is the dilemma. Without attempting to ex- 

 plain in what manner, we must ultimately revert to 

 the opinion of a Zoological distribution being effected 



* The existence of debris of horses in South America, in 

 company with the Megatherium in aqueous deposits, is not 

 yet sufficiently proved to be coeval ; and with regard to the 

 teeth of a horse, at least equal in size to our great domestic 

 breeds described by Mr. J. C. Bellamy, and found in the 

 ossiferous caves of South Devon, the difference of size is not 

 so great as to change the nature of the general conclusions ; 

 and several of these sites, where the remains of sheep, of a 

 canine, possibly a wolf, flint knives, potsherds, and even 

 human bones have been detected, although with or near those 

 of rhinoceros and hyena, lead to doubts respecting the real 

 cause and time of their juxtaposition. If the discovery of 

 true Equine debris in South America be now admitted in de- 

 ference to the late report of the accurate Owen, it remains to 

 be ascertained whether they do not belong to the Austral 

 group, that is, to the zebra form. 



