36 MR. OGILBY'S MONOGRAPH 



various improvements were at different times introduced into the generic distribution of 

 the Ruminantia, as it had been originally sketched out by Ray. The Camels were asso- 

 ciated with the rest of the order in the second edition (1740), and the genus Mosc/ims was 

 kidded in the sixth (1748) ; simple, concise, and logical definitions were given of all the 

 genera, but they were still founded upon trivial and artificial characters, and the enu- 

 meration of species differed but little from that of the ' Synopsis Methodica.' 



With regard to the hollow-horned Ruminants in particular, the generic definitions of 

 Linnreus, however arbitrary and empirical, possess all the logical correctness and sim- 

 plicity which so peculiarly characterized the genius of that great man, and which, as 

 they originally gave weight and currency to his system, still form one of the chief bul- 

 warks of his reputation. Throughout all the editions of the ' Systema Naturae' pub- 

 lished in his own lifetime, he retains the genera Bovinum, Ovinum, and Caprinum of his 

 predecessor, without any further alteration than the simplification of the characters 

 already alluded to, and a few occasional difl'erences in the enumeration of species. The 

 generic characters then finally settled were as follow : — 



Bos : cornua concava, antrorsum versa, lunata, l^evia ; 



Ovis : cornua concava, retrorsum versa, intorta, rugosa ; 



Capra : cornua concava, sursum versa, erecta, compressa, scabra ; 

 and these definitions, arbitrary and empirical as they are, still continue, with scarcely 

 any modification, to be the only really distinctive designations of the genera in ques- 

 tion. 



As to the characters themselves, it is evident that they are purely artificial ; still the 

 observation formerly made on the distribution of Ray may be applied with equal justice 

 to that of Linnaeus ; though neither natural nor scientific, it was at all events exclusive 

 and diagnostic, in reference to the small number of Ruminants then known ; for Lin- 

 njeus, like Ray, was acquainted only with fifteen species of hollow-horned Ruminants, 

 even at the date of the twelfth edition of his work, and of these he does not appear to 

 have personally examined a greater number than his predecessor. In his own time, there- 

 fore, the definitions of Linnaeus were sufficiently appropriate and exclusive, though 

 founded upon accidental and variable characters ; had he possessed the ample means of 

 observation afforded by the subsequent accumulation of species, he was too acute a 

 logician, and too good a philosopher, to have rested satisfied with generic characters at 

 once so vague, so trivial, and so uninfluential'. 



But whilst the zoology of the Ruminantia remained thus almost stationary in the hands 

 of Linnaeus, it was making rapid and brilliant progress under the auspices of his great rival 



' The species of Antelopes described in the 12th edition of the ' Systema Natur<e,' amount to five only; 

 viz. A. rupicapra, gazella (the modem oryx), cervicapra (now addax), dorcas and tatarka (now saiga) ; so that 

 he has rejected two species, mei-gens and bubalus, from the list of Ray, and added one, A. saigii. It is almost 

 superfluous to observe, that the term Antilope was then unknown, as a generic designation, and that both Ray 

 and Linnaeus include all these animals in the genus Capra. 



