In South America a species of _Auchenia_ has been found in the caves of Brazil, and others in the Pliocene deposits of the pampas, together with two extinct genera, _Palæolama_ and _Camelotherium_. We thus find the ancestors of the Camelidæ in a region where they do not now exist, but which is situated so that the now widely separated living forms could easily have been derived from it. This case offers a remarkable example of the light thrown by palæontology on the distribution of living animals; and it is a warning against the too common practice of assuming the direct land connection of remote continents, in order to explain similar instances of discontinuous distribution to that of the present family. {218}FAMILY 49.--TRAGULIDÆ. (2 Genera, 6 Species.) GENERAL DISTRIBUTION. __________________________________/\__________________________________ / \ NEOTROPICAL| NEARCTIC |PALÆARCTIC | ETHIOPIAN | ORIENTAL | AUSTRALIAN SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS. -----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+------------ | | | | | -- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- 2 -- -- |1. 2. 3. 4 |-- -- -- -- | | | | | The Tragulidæ are a group of small, hornless, deer-like animals, with tusks in the upper jaw, and having some structural affinities with the camels. The musk-deer was formerly classed in this family, which it resembles externally; but a minute examination of its structure by M. Milne-Edwards, has shown it to be more nearly allied to the true deer. The Chevrotains, or mouse-deer, _Tragulus_ (5 species), range over all India to the foot of the Himalayas and Ceylon, and through Assam, Malacca, and Cambodja, to Sumatra, Borneo, and Java (Plate VIII., vol. i. p. 337). _Hyomoschus_ (1 species), is found in West Africa. _Extinct Tragulidæ._--A species of _Hyomoschus_ is said to have been found in the Miocene of the South of France, as well as three extinct genera, _Dremotherium_ (also found in Greece), with _Lophiomeryx_ from the Upper Miocene, said to be allied to _Tragulus_; and _Amphitragulus_ from the Lower Miocene, of more remote affinities, and sometimes placed among the Deer. There seems to be no doubt, however, that this family existed in Europe in Miocene times; and thus another case of discontinuous distribution is satisfactorily accounted for. FAMILY 50.--CERVIDÆ. (8 Genera, 52 Species.)