330 



HISTORICAL PALAEONTOLOGY. 



been no difficulty in considering Sivatherium as simply a 

 gigantic four-horned Antelope, essentially similar to the living 

 Antilope (Tetraceros) quadricornis of India. The hinder pair 

 of horns, however, is not only much larger than the front pair, 

 but each possesses two branches or snags a peculiarity not to 

 be paralleled amongst any existing Antelope, save the abnormal 

 Prongbuck (Antilocapra) of North America. Dr. Murie, how- 

 ever, in an admirable memoir on the structure and relationships 

 of Sivatherium, has drawn attention to the fact that the Prong- 



Fl. 245. Skull of Sivatherium gtganteum, reduced In size. Miocene, India 

 (After Murie.) 



buck sheds the sheath of its horns annually, and has suggested 

 that this may also have been the case with the extinct form. 

 This conjecture is rendered probable, amongst other reasons, 

 by the fact that no traces of a horny sheath surrounding the 

 horn-cores of the Indian fossil have been as yet detected. 

 Upon the whole, therefore, we may regard the elephantine 

 Sivatherium as being most nearly allied to the Prongbuck of 

 Western America, and thus as belonging to the family of the 

 Antelopes. 



