The Geographical Distribution of Animals, Volume 2 / With a study of the relations of living and extinct faunas as elucidating the past changes of the Earth's surface

by Alfred Russel Wallace

Family 51.—CAMELOPARDALIDÆ. (1 Genus, 1 Species.)

General Distribution.
Neotropical Sub-regions.	Nearctic Sub-regions.	Palæarctic Sub-regions.	Ethiopian Sub-regions.	Oriental Sub-regions.	Australian Sub-regions.
Living Species.
— — — —	— — — —	— — — —	1 — 3 —	— — — —	— — — —
Extinct Species.
— — — —	— — — —	— 2 — —	1 — — —	— — 3 —	— — — —

The Camelopardalidæ, or giraffes, now consist of but a single species which ranges over all the open country of the Ethiopian region, and is therefore almost absent from West Africa, which is more especially a forest district. During the Middle Tertiary period, however, these animals had a wider range, over Southern Europe and Western India as far as the slopes of the Himalayas.

Extinct Species.—Species of Camelopardalis have been found in Greece, the Siwalik Hills, and Perim Island at the entrance to the Red Sea; and an extinct genus, Helladotherium, more bulky but not so tall as the giraffe, ranged from the south of France to Greece and North-west India.

Family 52.—BOVIDÆ. (34 Genera, 149 Species.)

General Distribution.
Neotropical Sub-regions.	Nearctic Sub-regions.	Palæarctic Sub-regions.	Ethiopian Sub-regions.	Oriental Sub-regions.	Australian Sub-regions.
— — — —	1. 2 — 4	1. 2. 3. 4	1. 2. 3 —	1. 2. 3. 4	1 — — —

This large and important family, includes all the animals commonly known as oxen, buffaloes, antelopes, sheep, and goats, which have been classed by many naturalists in at least three, and sometimes four or five, distinct families. Zoologically, they are briefly and accurately defined as, "hollow-horned ruminants;" and, although they present wide differences in external form, they grade so insensibly into each other, that no satisfactory definition of the smaller family groups can be found. As a whole they are almost confined to the great Old World continent, only a few forms extending along the highlands and prairies of the Nearctic region; while one peculiar type is found in Celebes, an island which is almost intermediate between the Oriental and Australian regions. In each of the Old World regions there are found a characteristic set of types. Antelopes prevail in the Ethiopian region; sheep and goats in the Palæarctic; while the oxen are perhaps best developed in the Oriental region.

Sir Victor Brooke, who has paid special attention to this family, divides them into 13 sub-families, and I here adopt the arrangement of the genera and species which he has been so good as to communicate to me in MSS.

Sub-family I. Bovinæ (6 genera, 13 species). This group is one of the best marked in the family. It comprises the Oxen and Buffaloes with their allies, and has a distribution very nearly the same as that of the entire family. The genera are as follows: Bos (1 sp.), now represented by our domestic cattle, the descendants of the Bos primigenius, which ranged over a large part of Central Europe in the time of the Romans. The Chillingham wild cattle are supposed to be the nearest approach to the original species. Bison (2 sp.), one still wild in Poland and the Caucasus; the other in North America, ranging over the prairies west of the Mississippi, and on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains (Plate XIX., vol. ii., p. [129]). Bibos (3 sp.), the Indian wild cattle, ranging over a large part of the Oriental region, from Southern India to Assam, Burmah, the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, and Java. Poephagus (1 sp.), the yak, confined to the high plains of Western Thibet. Bubalus (5 sp.), the buffaloes, of which three species are African, ranging over all the continental parts of the Ethiopian region; one Northern and Central Indian; and the domesticated animal in South Europe and North Africa. Anoa (1 sp.), the small wild cow of Celebes, a very peculiar form more nearly allied to the buffaloes than to any other type of oxen.

Sub-family II. Tragelaphinæ: (3 genera, 11 species). The Bovine Antelopes are large and handsome animals, mostly Ethiopian, but extending into the adjacent parts of the Palæarctic and Oriental regions. The genera are: Oreas (2 sp.), elands, inhabiting all Tropical and South Africa. Tragelaphus (8 sp.), including the bosch-bok, kudu, and other large antelopes, ranges over all Tropical and South Africa (Plate IV., vol. i., p. 261). Portax (1 sp.) India, but rare in Madras and north of the Ganges.