116 — 18 INDIAN TERTIARY AND POST-TERTIARY VERTEBRATA. 
the vishnuthere, we have, on the contrary, an elongated centrum, while the descend- 
ing lamina of the transverse process is comparatively hut slightly developed interiorly, 
and very largely antero-posteriorly. In all these characters the vertebra makes a 
marked step in the direction of the giraffe, in which the centrum is much elongated 
and the descending lamina of the transverse process so little developed interiorly, 
and so largely antero-posteriorly, as to be divided into a distinct anterior and pos- 
terior portion. The vertebra of Vishnutherhm is indeed intermediate in character 
between that of Sivatherium and Camelopardalis, but seems to partake more of the 
characters of the latter then the former. This vertebra has no trace of a median keel 
interiorly. 
It may be added that should this vertebra be wrongly referred to Vishnuthe- 
rium, this will not affect its value as indicating a connecting link between the giraffe 
and the sivathere. If it does not belong to Vishnutherium , it must probably belong 
to a new genus, as the vertebrae of Hydaspitherium are known. It indicates an 
animal whose neck was intermediate in length between the giraffe and other rumi- 
nants, and therefore agrees well with the proportions assigned to Vishnutherium 
from the study of the metatarsus. 
Distribution. — If all the remains here assigned to Vishnutherium be rightly 
determined, the animal must have formerly lived in Burma and the western 
Punjab, and was of rare occurrence. 
Summary . — Whether these remains belong to one or to several species or genera, 
they unmistakeably indicate a connecting link (or links) between the sivathere and 
the giraffe which so effectually bridges over the gap hitherto existing between those 
animals, as to do away with all family distinctions between the two. 
Genus III: HELLADOTHERIUM 1 2 , Gaudry. 
This genus was established by M. Gaudry, and contains only one species : it is 
distinguished from all the other members of the family by being totally unprovided 
with horns, and would accordingly seem to be nearest to the ancestral and least 
specialised type of the family. 
Species : Helladotherium duvernoyi, Gaud, and Dart. 
History. — This species, the only representative of the genus, has been described 
under its present generic name by Professor Gaudry 3 , from Pikermi, and nearly the 
whole of its osteology illustrated. In the same work 3 reference is made to a 
nearly perfect cranium from the Sub-Himalayan Siwaliks, referred originally by 
Ealconer and Cautley to a female individual of Sivatherium giganteum , and it is 
shown that this cranium must be referred to Helladotherium , and very probably 
1 Hellas (Greece) and Therion. 
2 “ Animaux Fossiles et Geologie de 1’ Attique,” p. 252 et seq. 
s P. 260. 
