DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS IN AMERICA. 245 



far shorter road. Even a species of antelope and two 

 other horned ruminants (Leptotherium) found their way 

 to Brazil. Two sorts of tapir, of which the dentition, 

 even in Cuvier's eyes, is scarcely distinguishable from 

 the Indian species ; two species of pigs, still bearing 

 in their milk-teeth unmistakable characters of their 

 aboriginal form ; and a number of deer, besides the 

 lamas, a later and originally American offshoot of the 

 Eocene Anoplotheria — are one and all living remnants 

 of this ancient colony from the East, which did not 

 reach its dwelling-place without copious losses on 

 its long pilgrimage. It can scarcely be doubted that 

 many of the beasts of prey which in the Diluvium of 

 South America retained their family character more 

 than they do now, must have arrived there in the same 

 manner. Let us now remember that even the Eocene 

 Caenopithecus of Egerkingen distinctly pointed to the 

 present apes of America, and that the Didelphidae (Opos- 

 sums) lie buried in the same European soils. It might 

 almost appear that it was pre-eminently the division 

 of arboreal quadrumana which, with the opossums, 

 domesticated itself in the vast forests of their new abode, 

 and, receiving a fresh impulse, gave rise to a multitude 

 of special forms, without however having, even in the 

 present times, reached the pitch of development 

 attained by their cousins who had remained behind in 

 the Old World. 



" We may now appropriately return to our previous 

 remark that this migration of animals did not find the 

 south of the New World destitute of mammals, but 

 rather already occupied by the toothless representatives 

 of antarctic, or at least of southern animal life. The 



