86 THE PALEONTOLOGIC RECORD 



and the true oxen, the most useful of all creatures to man, which 

 spread to Europe as Bos primigenius, the ancestor of Bos taurus. 



The sheep also found their expression point in India, and their 

 home to-day is central Asia. So too the domestic goat yet lives wild in 

 western Asia, a less plastic type, but purely Asiatic in origin. Indeed, 

 of the whole family of Bovidse, Asia was the origin and dispersal center, 

 and it is a curious fact that it still remains the home of the higher 

 types while others of lower degree have wandered afar to find their 

 homes in Africa, Europe and America. The camelids after long ages 

 of exclusive development in North America migrated to Asia to find 

 their highest evolution in the true camels, the highest and probably 

 final stage in the evolution of the family, while their kin, of lower de- 

 gree, went southward to terminate in the llama and alpaca, the only 

 mammals among all man's servants which we can say with tolerable 

 certainty have been entirely beyond the influence, direct or indirect, of 

 Asiatic environment. The reindeer, the highest of all the cervid fam- 

 ily, doubtless arose in northern Asia; certainly its home is in part 

 there, though some of its early kin migrated to America and have left 

 their descendants in the caribous. And India was the birthplace, as it 

 is the home, of the pig, whence came originally our domesticated swine. 

 Whether or not we give to Sus the highest place among the non-rumi- 

 nant, even-toed ungulate mammals, or to the Babirussa, matters not, 

 for both are of Asiatic origin. 



Of the odd-toed ungulates our domestic horse, Equus cdballus, 

 stands on the very summit; and Equus caballus arose in Asia, where 

 its ancestors yet have their wild progeny. And I believe that eventually 

 we must give to Asia the honor of the birthplace of the genus itself. 

 And the next lower type of the Equidse, the asses, are of Asiatic an- 

 cestry, though our domestic species comes from Arabia and Africa, 

 while the most primitive of the horses yet living found their refuge in 

 Africa. 



Southern or central Asia was the birthplace in early Pliocene times 

 of the elephants, and was their dispersal center; and, in Elephas indi- 

 cus, the only domesticated species, we have the last and highest stage in 

 the evolution of the Proboscidea, and, as is the case with the cape 

 buffalo, the zebras, wart hogs and others, we find in Africa their only 

 living kin, of more primitive form and untamable. 



Of all the great order of Carnivora the genus Felis admittedly oc- 

 cupies the highest place. The home of the cats is southern Asia and 

 there doubtless was their birthplace and the center of their dispersal. 

 The known paleontological record of the true cats is very meager in- 

 deed, and doubtless always will be till we know more of the Pliocene 

 and Pleistocene faunas of Asia. Two of the domesticated cats, the 

 Siamese and the cheetah, are of immediate Asiatic origin, and our fire- 



