OF THE HOLLOW-HORNED RUMINANTS. 35 



of inductive philosophy were for the first time applied to this branch of knowledn-e, and 

 a sound and rational logic employed to methodize and generalize the detached truths 

 and observations buried in the chaos of facts, fictions and opinions which form the vo- 

 luminous compilations of Gesner and Aldrovandus. His great object in the ' Synopsis 

 Methodica,' to use the words of the illustrious author himself, was, " ut animaha omnia, 

 certo cognita, methodo accuratiore, eorumque naturis magis consentanea quam qua hacte- 

 nus tradita sunt, disponeret' ; " and whoever studies thework, and makes proper allowance 

 for the scantiness and imperfection of the materials out of which it was composed, must 

 admit that he has admirably succeeded in the attempt. The generic distribution of the 

 hollow-horned Ruminants in particular, is wonderfully correct in fact, however defective 

 it may be in principle ; nor should we be surprised at Ray's failure in this higher and 

 more refined object of systematic arrangement, when we remember that succeeding 

 zoologists have been equally unsuccessful in seizing the really influential characters of 

 these animals, and classifying their true philosophical relations. 



In fact, the whole number of species of hollow-horned Ruminants described in the 

 ' Synopsis Methodica' does not exceed fifteen ; and of these, besides the common do- 

 mestic varieties, Ray appears to have known but four or five from personal observation. 

 Of these, two only, the Chamois and the Gemsbok, belong to the modern genus Antilope, 

 and they do not differ materially from the more common caprine forms ; so that the Ox, the 

 Sheep, and the Goat presented so many types of natural genera, to one or other of which 

 all the hollow-horned Ruminants then positively known were easily referred, without any 

 great violation of their natural affinities. The genera Bovinum, Ovinum, and Caprinum, 

 established by Ray, are therefore strictly natural groups, and, abstracting the few ano- 

 malous species associated with the latter, but which subsequent observation has shown 

 to possess different characters, can never be regarded in any other light. The imper- 

 fection of the arrangement lies, not in the result itself, but in the mode of arriving at it : 

 the groups are perfectly natural, but the characters by which they are distinguished, 

 and which are derived from the comparative size of the body, the smoothness, rugosity 

 and curvature of the horns, the existence of a beard or dewlap, the number of teats, and 

 the woolly or hairy nature of the covering, are as trivial, arbitrary and uninfluential as 

 can well be imagined. Yet, considering the scanty nature of the materials at bis dis- 

 posal, one is more inchned to admire the accuracy and acuteness of the author's genius, 

 than to condemn his partial and imperfect development of generic characters". 



Forty-two years after the publication of the ' Synopsis Methodica,' appeared the 

 ' Sy sterna Naturae' of Linnaeus (1735), a work destined to revolutionize every depart- 

 ment of natural science. Throughout the successive editions of this celebrated treatise, 

 which contain enumerations of the Mammalia, from the second to the twelfth inclusive, 



' Synop. Method, (preface). 



' Ray has distinctly described six species of Antelopes; viz. those now called A. rupicapra, addax, oryx, 

 dorctts, grimmia or mergens, and bubalus. 



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