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THE ORIGIN AND RELATIONSHIP OF THE 
LARGE MAMMALS OF NORTH AMERICA 
BY MADISON GRANT 
SECRETARY OF THE NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
The increase of knowledge of the true relationship of mam- 
mals, and their geographical distribution, has now reached a point 
where it is possible to analyze the mammalian fauna of North 
America, and to indicate the continent where the original ex- 
pansion and radiation of the various groups took place. Paleon- 
tology has, of recent years, shed a flood of light upon this sub- 
ject, and offers, in many instances, definite proof of what has 
heretofore been largely conjecture. 
It is the purpose of this article to briefly review the living 
large mammals of the United States and Canada, and to en- 
deavor to trace their past history. 
The higher fauna of North America, when compared with that 
of other large continents, presents an astonishing poverty, as to 
the number both of genera and of species, and the latter are, in 
the great majority of cases, very closely allied to Old World 
forms. 
The animals which the first settlers found along the Atlantic 
coast seemed almost identical with those they had left behind 
in England or on the adjoining continent. This resemblance 
was very close in the North, but in the South a larger number 
of unfamiliar forms were found. As the seventeenth and eigh- 
teenth centuries were not ages of scientific accuracy in matters 
zoological, names were applied at random, just as was done by 
the Dutch settlers in South Africa, with the result that many a 
misfit occurred, and the same animal bore distinct names in dif- 
ferent sections of the country. 
