INTRODUCTION 5 



northern Europe and Asia; the wapiti (Cervus canadensis), 

 which is closely allied to the red deer of the old world, and 

 the caribou (Rangifer species), which very closely resembles 

 the reindeer of northern Europe. The bison or buffalo is 

 related to the European bison, which has suffered a serious 

 reduction in numbers and is now confined to the primaeval 

 forests of Lithuania, Moldavia, Wallachia, and the Cau- 

 casus, where it is artificially preserved.* The mountain- 

 sheep {Ovis species), so characteristic of our Western moun- 

 tains, are well represented in the old world, the centre of 

 their habitat being the immense mountain ranges of Cen- 

 tral Asia. The musk-ox (Ovibos moschatus) is an animal 

 allied to the sheep family, that is particularly distinctive of 

 our region of the world, ranging as it does over the barren 

 grounds and arctic regions of the north and eastward to 

 Greenland. The Rocky Moimtain goat {Oreamnos mon- 

 tanus and its sub-species) is found only in the Rocky Moun- 

 tains. Finally, the most interesting of all our mammals is 

 the prong-buck or antelope {Antilocapra americana), which 

 forms by itself a distinctive family of the ungulate or 

 hoofed animals. It is entirely confined to a region com- 

 prising a portion of the Prairie Provinces and the Western 

 States. While it is allied in certain respects to the ante- 

 lopes of the old world, it is unique among all hollow-horned 

 ruminants by reason of the fact that, like the members of 

 the deer family, it sheds its horns every year. 



* According to Dr. Theodor G. Ahrens, "The Present Status of the Euro- 

 pean Bison or Wisent," Journal of Mammalogy, vol. 2, no. 2, May, 1921, 

 ppr 58-62, the Lithuanian herd numbered 170 or 180 in 1918, but after the 

 German revolution it seems that all or nearly all the remaining bison were 

 shot by the inhabitants and the retiring German soldiers, among whom disci- 

 pUne had been undermined by the revolution. Later the war between Po- 

 land and Russia passed over the region. Since the Russian revolution the 

 Kuban Cossacks have demanded the return of their old hunting grounds in 

 the Caucasus, so that extermination of the bison in that region is also to be 

 feared. Besides the few introduced specimens still extant in Pless and possi- 

 bly in Ascania Nova there remain a few specimens in zoological gardens. 

 Summing up, he concludes that the extinction of the species is imminent. 

 — R. M. A. 



