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IV. Monograph of the Hollow-horned Ruminants. By William Ogilby, Esq., M.A., 

 FRA.S., F.G.S., F.L.S., S^c, Honorary Member of the Royal Zoological Society 

 of Ireland, and of the Societe Zoologique Natura Artis Magistra of Amsterdam; 

 Secretary of the Zoological Society of London.— Part I. 



CommunicatedJanuary 14, 1840. 



" Si in redigendis auctorum erroribus hie nimis forte durus fuisse videar, cogltet Lector, nullibi magls vitiosos 

 esse methodicos nostros recentiores, quam in recensendis AntUoparum speciebus, inque disponendis auctorum. 

 maxime antiquiorum, eo spectantibus synonymis."— Pallas. 



I. Introductory Observations. 



In reviewing the history of the Ruminantia, the zoologist, who, like myself, has made 

 a special study of these animals, must be forcibly struck with the confusion of syno- 

 nyms, the carelessness and inaccuracy of description, the vague and mdefamte limits 

 of the generic and subgeneric groups, the trivial and confessedly empirica pnnciples of 

 classification, and, as a natural consequence, the great number of nominal species and 

 the general disorder which still prevail in this department of mammalogy. The most 

 recent writers on this subject are in no respect more correct or philosophical than their 

 predecessors, and the motto prefixed to this memoir is as apphcable at the present day 

 as it was in the time of Pallas. 



Yet it is not a httle surprising, especially when we consider the great improvements 

 which have been introduced into other departments of mammalogy since the commence- 

 ment of the nineteenth century, that the generic distribution of the Ruminants, in many 

 respects the most important order of the whole class, should remain to the present hour 

 verv nearly in the same state in which Ray left it one hundred and fitty years ago O 

 course I speak only of the development of the natural relations and of the principles of 

 classification applicable to the Ruminantia ; the mere augmentation of species has been 

 as great and as rapid in this as in any other group of Mammals ; but m spite of the 

 superabundance of materials-in spite of the pre-eminent interest which attaches to the 

 animals themselves, from the symmetry of their forms, the gracefulness of their move- 

 ments, their inoffensive habits and unrivalled importance in the cEconomy of human hie. 

 and in the progressive development of civilization.-it is an acknowledged fact, that the 

 VOL. in. — part I. *" 



