1348 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



found fossil in the cave-deposits of Europe ; while the Afro-Asiatic 

 genus Gazella, in which the lyrate horns are laterally compressed, 

 occurs in the Pliocene of Europe, Africa, and India, as well as in 

 the Norfolk Forest-bed. The Hippotragine section may be taken to 

 include the existing African genera Oryx, Addax, and Hippotragus, 

 and is characterised by the long and straight, or backwardly-curved 

 horns, the absence of supraorbital pits in the skull, and the broad 

 and hypsodont upper molars, which resemble those of the oxen. 

 In a fossil state this section is represented by Hippotragus in the 

 Indian Siwaliks ; and also by the extinct Palceoryx, of the older 

 Pliocene of Greece, Italy, Samos, and France, which appears to 

 have been closely allied to Oryx, although showing some affinity to 

 Hippotragus. The last section into which the true existing ante- 

 lopes may be divided is the Tragelaphine, comprising Boselaphus in 

 India, and Tragelaphus, Strepsiceros, and Oreas in Africa. In the 

 Indian genus, of which the Nilghai is the only existing representa- 

 tive, the horns are short and upright, and are not present in the 

 females, while the dentition is hypsodont (fig. 1221); fossil forms 

 occur in India from the Siwaliks upwards. In the African forms 

 the horns are spirally twisted, with two more or less well-defined 

 longitudinal ridges, the skull has deep supraorbital pits and lachry- 

 mal vacuities, but no pit in the lachrymal itself, and the molars are 

 broad and brachydont like those of the Cervidce. Strepsiceros 

 (Kudu), in which the anterior ridge on the horns is much the 

 stronger of the two, apparently occurs in the Indian Siwaliks, which 

 may also contain a representative of the allied Oreas (Eland). The 

 extinct Palceoreas (fig. 1222), of the Lower Pliocene of Europe and 

 Algeria, appears to have been allied to both the preceding genera ; 

 while the so-called Antilope torticornis, of the Pliocene of France, 

 has the posterior ridge of the horns the most developed, as in the 

 existing Tragelaphus, to which genus it has, indeed, been referred. 

 The remarkable Protragelaphus, of the Lower Pliocene of Greece, 

 differs from all the preceding genera in that the horns have only a 

 posterior longitudinal ridge, in the absence of supraorbital pits, and 

 in the development of lachrymal depressions like those of the Cer- 

 vidce. With the Rupicaprine section of this family we come to genera 

 showing characters connecting the true antelopes with the goats ; 

 but the only definitely known fossil remains belong to the existing 

 alpine Chamois (Rupicapra), which occurs fossil in the cave-deposits 

 of the Continent. Under the name of the Palaotragine section 

 may be included three extinct Tertiary genera having the laterally 

 compressed horn-cores of the goats, but the upper molars more or 

 less like those of the brachydont antelopes. The earliest of these 

 genera, and indeed of all the antelopes, is Protragoceros, of the 

 Middle Miocene of France, one of the species having been long 



