Take, for example, the goats which are of Asiatic origin. Every one has heard of the "Steinbock,"--the Alpine mountain goat (_Capra ibex_)--though very few have seen it in its native haunts, where it is now on the verge of extinction. A closely allied species (_Capra sibirica_) inhabits the Altaï and Himalayan Mountains; a third species (_Capra sinaitica_) lives in Palestine, and has entered Egypt by way of the Sinaitic peninsula. Another (_C. ægagrus_) occurs in Asia Minor, Persia, the island of Crete, and some of the Cyclades. This exemplifies what I remarked in the last chapter about the former land-connection between Greece and the Asiatic continent. Finally, we have the Pyrenean Goat (_Capra pyrenaica_), which is found in the Pyrenees, the higher ranges of Central Spain, in Andalusia, and Portugal, thus indicating that it probably reached the Spanish peninsula from the south by means of the old Sicilo-Algerian highway, especially as remains of the species occur in the cave deposits of Gibraltar. The ancestors of the goat-like Antelope--known as the Chamois (_Rupicapra tragus_)--no doubt also came from Asia. The genus is not represented there, but _Nemorhœdus_ and _Budorcas_ are allied Asiatic genera, while the Rocky Mountain Goat (_Haploceros montanus_) also has certain affinities with the Chamois. Besides the Alps, the latter occurs in the Caucasus and the Pyrenees. The Alpine Marmot (_Arctomys marmotta_) is sometimes quoted as owing its origin to the Siberian pleistocene migration, but it does not occur in Siberia now, nor is there any palæontological evidence that it was ever found there. The genus _Arctomys_ is an ancient Asiatic genus, to judge from its general range. Only two species occur in Europe, one of which, the true Siberian Marmot (_A. bobac_), just enters our continent in the east--or rather, it is one of those species which came to us in pleistocene times and are now gradually retreating towards their native land. The genus, however, is probably not of Siberian origin. No less than seven other species occur in Asia, six of which are confined to Central Asia and the Himalayan Mountains, while four have wandered to North America. The sequence of events, therefore, was that the ancestor of _Arctomys marmotta_ probably came to the Alps direct from Central Asia by way of Asia Minor in miocene or pliocene times. It has since become modified into a distinct species, and has spread to the European plain, where it occurs fossil in pleistocene strata, and to the Carpathian Mountains and the Pyrenees.