132 



Mr. Ogilby commences by observing that " It has been justly re- 

 marked by Professor Palias, that if the generic characters of the Ru- 

 minantia were to be founded upon the modifications of dentition, in 

 aecordance with the rule so generally applicable to other groups of 

 Mammals, the greater part of the order -vvould necessarily be comprised 

 in a single genus ; since the number, form, and arrangement of the 

 teeth being the šame m all, except the Camels and Llamas, these 

 organs conseąuently afFord no grounds of definite or general distinc- 

 tion. Hence it is that naturalists have been obliged to resort to other 

 principles to regulate the distribution of ruminating animals ; and the 

 form, curvature, and direction of the homs, selected for this purposa 

 at a period when the extremely limited knowledge of species permitted 

 the practical application of such arbitrary and artificial characters 

 without any very glaring violation of natūrai affinities, still continue 

 to be the only rule adopted by zoologists in this department of Mam- 

 malogy. The illustrious Illiger forms a solitary but honourable ex- 

 ception ; he first introduced the consideration of the muzzle and la- 

 chrymal sinus into the definitions of the genera Antilope, Capra, and 

 Bos ; but his labours were disregarded by subseąuent -vvriters, or his 

 principles applied only to the subdivision of the genus Antilope. It 

 is obvious, however, that as the knowledge of new forms and spe- 

 cies became more and more extensive, the prevailing gratuitous rule 

 above mentioned, founded as it is upon pūrely arbitrary characters 

 which have no necessary relation to the habits and ceconomy, or even 

 to the general external form, of the animals themselves, would even- 

 tually involve in confusion and inconsistency the difFerent groups 

 which were founded upon its application ; and such has long been 

 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-homed Ruminants, without 

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

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

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

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

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

 ■vvill 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 natūrai 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 ajjpears to have been 

 sufficiently aware of the extremely arbitrary and artificial character 

 of the principai group itself, vvhich they contented themselves with 

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

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

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

 secondary and less important nature, the benefit vvhich might have 

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



