380 GEOGRAPHICAL AND GEOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION. 



Quaternary deposits of Eurasia— England, France, Germany, Si- 

 beria, &c. — as in America. The range of this species, or of forms 

 closely allied to it (O. bombifrons, O. cavifrons), on the American 

 continent at one time extended to the confines of Arkansas. 



The Old World Caprina, whose special distribution has already 

 been discussed in the zoogeographical part of this work, comprises 

 some twenty or more species, which, with two exceptions — a Neil- 

 gherry goat and an Abyssinian ibex — are confined to the Holarctic 

 region, or to this and the Mediterranean transition tract. It is a 

 somewhat surprising circumstance, in view of the broad distribu- 

 tion of the goats, that the sheep, which have obtained such a 

 firm foothold in the mountainous and intermountainous regions 

 of Asia, should be almost entirely wanting from the continent of 

 Europe — indeed, from the entire Eurafrican region, if we except 

 the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, and Crete, the Balkan Peninsula, 

 and some isolated spots on the Atlas Mountains. No unequivocal 

 remains of the goat or sheep, except Ovibos, have thus far been 

 discovered in any American formation, and in Europe such remains 

 are confined almost exclusively to the Quaternary cave and brec- 

 cia deposits (France, Italy). In India, however, they have been 

 traced back to an older period ; Capra Sivalensis, a form closely re- 

 lated to the recent Iharal of the Neilgherries, has been described 

 from the Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills, and Capra Peiimensis, 

 whose remains would seem to have been associated with those of 

 Dinotherium and Aceratherium, animals indicative of the Miocene 

 period, from the island of Perim. A remarkable hornless form, to 

 which Riltimeyer has given the name of Bucapra Daviesii, also 

 belongs to the Siwalik fauna. 



The most important group of ungulates after the antelopes is 

 constituted by the deer (Cervidte), which comprises some sixty 

 or more species — excluding the Central Asiatic musk (Moschus) 

 and the giraffe which are referred here by some authors (Ruti- 

 meyer) — distributed over the greater portion of both the Old and 

 the New World. Australia, as in nearly all other mammalian 

 groups, is entirely deficient, and Africa counts but two species, 

 the fallow-deer and a stag, which inhabit the Mediterranean re- 

 gion. The South American forms, whose domain extends com- 

 pletely across the continent to Tierra del Puego, have been placed 

 in the genera (or sub-genera) Pudu, Coassus, Furcifer, Blastocerus, 



