PEDIGREE OF MAMMALS. B07: 
the Anoplotheride stamps the latter with tolerable 
certainty as ruminants. 
Disregarding the camels, already mentioned as of 
doubtful origin, the typical ruminants separate into the 
deer-like and the horned. Through the hornless musk 
animals, the deer are connected with the Tragulide and- 
the older genera. The giraffes form a side branch. But 
although the Helladotherium, nearly allied to the giraffe 
and at one time inhabiting the Athenian territory in 
herds, and the colossal Sivatherium, found in the spurs of 
the Himalayas, afford some clue to the position of the 
giraffes, so entirely isolated in the present world, the 
details of their derivation still remain very obscure. 
From the antelopes to the closely allied—in fact, 
scarcely separable — genera of goat and sheep, and 
similarly to the oxen, the systematic as well as the palz- 
ontological series, and likewise the ontogenetic phases, 
present transitions undeniably evincing family relation- 
ship. Besides the relations of the milk dentition of the 
filial to the ancestral genera, which Riitimeyer has also 
followed minutely, great interest attaches to the gradual 
transformation of the skull, which reaches its extreme in 
the oxen, and advances from the antelope and sheep, 
through Ovibos, Bubalus (buffalo), Bison, to Bos (ox). 
dn the latter, the erect position of the frontal bone attains 
its utmost grade, and this transformation of the skull of 
the antelope is repeated in the calf. 
The usual classification of the Sirenia, or sea-cows, with 
the Cetacea, was decidedly a systematic misconception, 
arising from one-sided and, moreover, merely superficial 
consideration of the locomotive organs. All other 
characteristic indications—above all, the structure of 
