CARNIVOEA. 411 



founded his genus Leptotherium. No true antelope is now 

 known to exist in South America. 



Family — Boyidm. 



The earliest known ruminants are the cervine Dorca- 

 therium from the miocene of Eppelsheim, and the antelopine 

 species from that of Sansan. The huge four-horned Sivathere 

 and Bramathere may be from deposits of like antiquity in 

 India. Fossil molars of the ruminant type and bovine char- 

 acter have hitherto been found only in beds or breccias of 

 pliocene and post-pliocene age. At those periods in Britain 

 there existed a very large species of bison (Bison priscus), 

 and a larger species of ox (Bos antiqims), from pliocene fresh- 

 water beds ; whilst a somewhat less but still stupendous wild 

 ox {Bos primigenius) has left its remains in post-pliocene 

 marls of England and Scotland. With this was associated an 

 aboriginal British ox of much smaller stature and with short 

 horns (B. longifrons), which continued to exist until the histori- 

 cal period, and was probably the source of the domesticated 

 cattle of the Celtic races before the Eoman invasion. A huge 

 buffalo has left its remains in the old pliocene beds of the 

 Sewalik hills: those of a smaller species (Buoalus antiquus, 

 Duv.) occur in the newer pliocene of Algeria. A buffalo, 

 not distinguishable from the existing musk kind (Bubalus 

 moschatus), now confined to the northern latitudes of North 

 America, roamed over similar latitudes of Europe and Asia in 

 company with the hair-clad elephants and rhinoceroses : its 

 remains have been found in glacial clay and drift, in England * 



Order Carnivora. 



The quadrupeds which subsist by preying upon others 

 co-existed under several generic and specific forms with the 



* Owen, Quarterly Journal of Geological Society, vol. xii. (1855), p. 124. 



