470 Zoological Society: Mr. Ogilby's 



its acknowledged effect. The genus Antilope, in particular, has be- 

 come a kind of zoological refuge for the destitute, and forms an in- 

 congruous assemblage of all the hollow-horned Ruminants, without 

 distinction of form or character, which the mere shape of the horns 

 excluded from the genera Bos, Ovis, and Copra ; it has thus come to 

 contain nearly four times as many species as all the rest of the hollow- 

 horned Ruminants together ; so diversified are its forms, and so in- 

 congruous its materials, that it presents not a single character which 

 will either apply to all its species, or suffice to differentiate it from 

 conterminous genera. 



'* To meet this obvious evil, MM. Lichtenstein, De Blainville, Des- 

 marest, and Hamilton Smith have applied Illiger's principles to sub- 

 divide the artificial genus Antilope into something more nearly ap- 

 proaching to natural groups ; the reform thus effected, however, was 

 but partial in its operation ; the root of the evil still remained un- 

 touched, for none of these eminent zoologists appears to have been 

 sufficiently aware of the extremely arbitrary and artificial character 

 of the principal group itself, which they contented themselves with 

 breaking up into subgenera, nor of the actual importance and exten- 

 sive application of the characters which they employed for that pur- 

 pose. By mixing up these characters, moreover, with others of a 

 secondary and less important nature, the benefit which might have 

 been expected from their labours has been, in a great measure, neu- 

 tralized ; and even the subdivisions which they have introduced into 

 the so-called genus Antilope, are less definite and comprehensive than 

 they might otherwise have been made. 



" The truth is, however, that the presence or absence of horns in 

 one or both sexes ; the substance and nature of these organs, whether 

 solid or concave, permanent or deciduary ; the form of the upper lip, 

 whether thin and attenuated as in the goat, or terminating in a broad 

 heavy naked muzzle as in the Ox ; and the existence of lachrymal 

 sinuses and interdigital pores, are the characters which really influ- 

 ence the habits and ceconomy of ruminating animals, and upon 

 which, consequently, their generic distinctions mainly depend. These, 

 with the assistance, in a very few instances, of such accessory cha- 

 racters as the superorbital and maxillary glands, the number of teats, 

 and the existence of inguinal pores, are sufficient in all cases to de- 

 fine and characterize the genera with the strictest reference to logical 

 precision and zoological simplicity. It is not my intention to discuss 

 the value of these characters, or to state the reasons which induced 

 me to adopt them in preference to those more generally employed in 

 this department of Mammalogy ; these will form the subject of a 

 future communication, and I shall content myself for the present 

 with observing, that the presence or absence of horns in the females 

 regulates, in a great measure, the social intercourse of the sexes ; 

 that upon the form of the lips and muzzle, the only organs of touch 

 and prehension among the Ruminantia, depend the nature of the food 

 and habitat, making the animal a grazer or a browser, as the case may 

 be ; and that the existence or nonexistence of interdigital glands, 

 the use of which appears to be to lubricate the hoofs, has a very ex- 

 tensive influence upon the geographical distribution of the species ; 



