58 SPIEACULA OF ANIMALS. 



the turf, think large nostrils necessary, and a perfection, in 

 hunters and running horses. 



Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, seems to 

 have had some notion that stags have four spiracula : — 



TeTpaSv/uLoi. ^ives, iricrvpes iTuoirjai SiavXoi. 



" Quadupai'tite nostrils, four respiratory passages." 



0pp. Cyn. Lib. ii. 1. 181. 



Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say, 



against the hand, either thrusting it repeatedly, or rubhing it. The peculiar 

 odour is freely imparted to the substance rubbed, but seems to offer no special 

 attraction to his senses : he neither smells to it remarkably, nor licks it. The 

 second male, whose horns have about three-fourths of their full growth, and 

 whose rich colours are only less deep than those of his more aged neighbour, 

 acts in a similar manner. His suborbital sinus, though strongly developed, is 

 not so extensive as that of the older animal : in its quiet state it is scarcely 

 completely closed, so thick are its lips ; in its condition of excitement it is 

 widely expanded. The animal then thrusts it at the offered hand ; but does 

 not exhibit an equal readiness to rub it. The youngest male is evidently 

 immature ; its horns have only commenced making their first spiral turn, and 

 its colour is the fawn of the female, with her pale stripe along the side : for in 

 the Indian antelope, as in most animals in which the adult males differ in 

 colour from the females, the young of both sexes are similarly coloured and 

 resemble the dam. In this individual the suborbital sinus is small ; its lips 

 are closely applied to each other ; and they are but slightly moved when the 

 animal is interested ; if he uses his nose, the sac is called into moderate action. 

 He cares little for the odour of his older relatives. The remaining specimen' 

 was probably of nearly the same age with this younger male when that occurred 

 which, while it allowed of the animal's increasing in bulk, checked the deve- 

 lopment of the external characters that belong to the mature male. Its advance 

 towards perfection was arrested while the female livery of the young animal 

 was yet retained, and its colour is the fawn of the female with tlie side marked 

 lengthways by her paler line. Its horn too, normal in its character, as far as a 

 point corresponding with the early part of the first spiral turn, and about this 

 point regularly ringed, afterwards loses the form characteristic of the species, 

 and instead of being completed by a continuous series of spiral tums, surrounded 

 by strongly marked rings, becomes smooth, continues slender, and is directed 

 backwards in one single large sweep, forming a horn altogether monstrous, and 

 one which is sheep-like, though infinitely weak, rather than antelopine : only 

 one such horn remains. In this animal the suborbital sinus is not more 

 developed than in the youngest and immature male, and it is quite unused : 

 the sinus is little more than a mark existing in the ordinary situation, and no 

 motion whatever is observed in its lips; it is not applied to any substance 

 brought near to it, the nose being usually employed. A finger loaded with 

 the secretion from the sac of the mature male is smelt to by this individual, 

 and 16 then freely licked ; perhaps on account of its saltness alone, but probably 



