CAMELS. ^ 375 



of Lower and Middle Eocene age, the former of which is stated by 

 Marsh to have had at least four functional toes, while the latter 

 united with its predominant suilline characters certain peculiar car- 

 nivore modifications of the skull. Some very remarkable buno- 

 donts of a hog-like character, found in the phosphorite deposits of 

 Quercy, France, and named by Filhol the Paohysimia, are consid- 

 ered by that author to possess some striking structural features 

 allying them with the Primates, and rendering it not exactly im- 

 probable that the last may find their earliest ancestors in these 

 ancient types. 



Of somewhat doubtful position, but with distinctively suilline 

 afiinities, are Choeropotamus (Eocene) and Anthracotherium and 

 Hyopotamus (Eocene — Miocene). 



Artiodactyla Selenodonta. — Among recent forms this section com- 

 prises the camels (Tylopoda), chevrotains (Tragulina), and true 

 ruminants (Ruminantia), with such well-known forms as the ox, 

 goat, deer, and antelope. 



The camels, constituting the family Camelidse, comprise, as gen- 

 erally recognised, two genera — the Old World Camelus, the camel 

 proper, and the New World Auchenia, the llamas (guanaco, vicuila, 

 alpaca). Of the former there are two species, the dromedary, or 

 one-humped animal (C. dromedarius), a native of the deserts of 

 Arabia, whence it has spread eastward to India, and the Bactrian, 

 or two-humped camel (C. Bactrianus), which occupies the region of 

 Central Asia from the Black Sea to China, and from the Himalayas 

 to beyond the Siberian boundaries. Although the camel is gener- 

 ally considered to be a belonging of the hotter regions of the earth's 

 surface, it is well known that the Bactrian species thrives admira- 

 bly in the northern districts of Mongolia, and that even as far 

 north as the southern extremity of Lake Baikal, on the fifty-third 

 parallel of latitude, it passes the rigours of a Siberian winter with- 

 out apparent discomfort. That the dromedary, which is now one 

 of the distinctive animals of North Africa, was unknown to the 

 ancient Egyptians is proved by the absence of representations of it 

 from all monumental inscriptions. The American representatives 

 of the Camelidse are the llama, alpaca, guanaco, and vicufla, con- 

 stituting the genus Auchenia, the first two of which, inhabitants 

 of the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes, exist now only in n state of 

 domestication, while the vicufla inhabits the Andean slopes of Peru 



