158 A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST 



rat-goat were slowly developed from a Miocene sheath- 

 horned ruminant, a primitive sort of antelope in some part 

 of North-west Africa, or in an extension of it now sub- 

 merged in the Atlantic, and stragglers of this curious and 

 now lost Ruminant stock were left in Majorca when in 

 Miocene or early Pliocene times that island became 

 detached from its Hispano- African connection. 



