Distribution 23 



type in the Pliocene of the same area, points to the conclusion that the Old 

 World was the original home of the types of deer by which it is now 

 populated. And it may further be considered certain that the wapiti is a 

 comparatively recent immigrant into North America by way of Bering 

 Strait. Not improbably the elks are likewise immigrants into the New 

 World from the Old, although generalised types occur in the later Tertiary 

 deposits of both areas. With regard to the place of origin of the reindeer, 

 there is no decisive evidence available. The most primitive of the brow- 



Fig. 4. — Diagrammatic Map of the distribution of Deer. The oblique shading indicates the approximate 

 range of the Reindeer and Elk ; the vertical that of the sub-genus Cervus, and in the Old World 

 also of the Sikine and Daminc groups, as well as of the Roes ; the cross-shading that of the Rusine 

 group and Muntjacs ; and the horizontal that of the American Deer. 



antlered Old World deer are undoubtedly the muntjacs, sambars, chital, and 

 sikas, and there is proof that most or all of these existed in the European 

 Tertiaries. Their existence in the Oriental region, and some adjacent 

 parts of the Eastern Holarctic region, where species of the red deer group 

 are wanting, is one out of many instances of the survival of ancient forms of 

 life in these areas. That the fallow deer group is a specialised ofF-shoot 

 from the sikas, may be asserted with considerable confidence ; and the red 

 deer group, characterised by the speciality of generally developing a bez- 

 tine, may likewise be regarded as descended from the latter. Hence all 



