Animals Before Man 



(Antilocapra, america/na) is among the indige- 

 nous mammals, so probably are the peccaries 

 and smaller deer, the black bears, and possibly 

 the jaguar and puma. 



The largest of our mammals, the bison, 

 moose, and elk, are immigrants from the Old 

 World, and so are the brown bears of the ex- 

 treme Northwest. 



On the other hand, some animals are not, 

 and never have been, present in this country, 

 and among them are such important forms as 

 the hippopotamus, hogs, goats, and true ante- 

 lopes.* 



Thus the life of our continent, and of others, 

 is derived from two sources : that which has 

 developed here and is the result of successive 

 modifications among animals which came into 

 being long ago ; and that which has come in 

 from other lands brought for a time into con- 

 tact with ours by the upheaval of the earth. 

 To understand the present distribution of ani- 



* There is a possibility that these last may prove to have been 

 represented here in the Pliocene, as a horn in the United States 

 National Museum, and some foot-bones in Princeton, appear to 

 belong to antelopes. 



280 



