222 GEOGRAPHICAL ZOOLOGY. [part iv. 



are briefly and accurately defined as, " hollow-horned ruminants ;" 

 and, although they present wide differences in external form, 

 they grade so insensibly into each other, that no satisfactory 

 definition of the smaller family groups can be found. As 

 a whole they are almost confined to the great Old World 

 continent, only a few forms extending along the highlands and 

 prairies of the Nearctic region ; while one peculiar type is found in 

 Celebes, an island which is almost intermediate between the 

 Oriental and Australian regions. In each of the Old World 

 regions there are found a characteristic set of types. Antelopes 

 prevail in the Ethiopian region ; sheep and goats in the Palaj- 

 arctic ; while the oxen are perhaps best developed in the Oriental 

 region. 



Sir Victor Brooke, who has paid special attention to this 

 family, divides them into 13 sub-families, and 1 here adopt the 

 arrangement of the genera and species which he has been. so 

 good as to communicate to me in MSS. 



Sub-family I. BoviN.^ (6 genera, 13 species). This group is 

 one of the best marked in the family. It comprises the Oxen 

 and Buffaloes with their allies, and has a distribution very 

 nearly the same as that of the entire family. The genera are as 

 follows : Bos (1 sp.), now represented by our domestic cattle, the 

 descendants of the Bos primigenius, which ranged over a large 

 part of Central Europe in the time of the Eomans. The Chil- 

 lingham wild cattle are supposed to be the nearest approach to 

 the original species. Bison (2 sp.), one still wild in Poland and 

 the Caucasus; the other in North America, ranging over the 

 prairies west of the Mississippi, and on the eastern slopes of the 

 Rocky Mountains (Plate XIX., vol. ii., p. 129). Bihos (3 sp.), 

 the Indian wild cattle, ranging over a large part of the Oriental 

 region, from Southern India to Assam, Burmah, the Malay 

 Peninsula, Borneo, and Java. Poepliagus (1 sp.), the yak, con- 

 fined to the high plains of Western Thibet. Bubalus (5 sp.), the 

 buffaloes, of which three species are African, ranging over all the 

 continental parts of the Ethiopian region ; one Northern and 

 Central Indian ; and the domesticated animal in South Europe 

 and North Africa. Anoa (1 sp.), the small wild cow of Celebes, 



