38 MR. OGILBY'S MONOGRAPH 



' Spicilegia Zoologica,' and ten years afterwards in an improved and enlarged form in 

 the 12th Number of the same work. Three new species' were added to the list of 

 Buffon in the first of these memoirs, and a fourth' in the last ; but, on the other hand, 

 tive' were originally rejected as nominal and three^ afterwards, all of which have been 

 subsequently verified and re-admitted. The original paper contains only one nominal 

 species' which was rejected in the re-publication and final memoir ; but the latter con- 

 tains three other nominal species", and though more correct in the synonyms, throw 

 little additional light on the group. In fact, it contains only the same number of spe- 

 cies which Bufton knew thirteen years before. Upon the whole, from sixteen to twenty 

 species of hollow-horned Ruminants were now recognized as generically distinct from 

 Bos, Ovis and Capra, and the propriety of the separation proposed by Pallas was so 

 obvious and so necessary, that the new genus was quickly adopted by contemporary 

 zoologists, and still continues to maintain its place in the system. 



The radical defect of the labours of Pallas in this department, consists in the vague, 

 arbitrary and variable characters which he selected for the definition of the new genus, 

 or rather to distinguish it from the genus Capra, for he has given no positive definition 

 of the group itself. Had he allowed their due weight to the characters of the lachrymal 

 sinus and the sexual nature of the horns, which he points out as distinguishing some 

 species of his new genus, and applied the resulting principles, not to the Antelopes alone, 

 but to the whole of the hollow-horned Ruminants, he would have arrived at a more 

 simple and natural classification ; but the authority of Linnaeus was at that time so firmly 

 established, and the veneration in which all his opinions were held was so great, that it 

 would have been considered a kind of high treason to have proposed the adoption of 

 any principles not admitted by him, or altered any of the definitions which he had 

 established. The new genus of Pallas was accordingly constructed on the same model 

 as the old genera Bos, Ovis, and Capra ; yet already, even at the period of its formation, 

 the author himself was so sensible of the practical inconvenience attending the loose 

 and vague nature of its characters, that he was obliged to divide it into subordinate 

 groups, according to the form of the horns, whether simply curved, lyrated, straight, 

 twisted, or spiral. By this means an apparent individuality and precision were given 

 to the subgenera, which in a great measure concealed the defects of the principal group 

 itself, and by its speciousness imposed upon succeeding naturalists, as it materially re- 

 tarded the progress of the science and the development of natural principles. The 

 seeds of disorder thus early sown germinated rapidly, by the accumulation of new 

 species, in the hands of Pennant, Allaman, Gmelin, Erxleben, Shaw, and other authors ; 

 every hollow-horned Ruminant which possessed neither the normal characters of an ox, 

 a sheep, or a goat, as they had been settled by Linnaeus, was, as a matter of course, as- 



' Leucophiea, picta, and pygarga. ' Oryx. ' Gutturosa, koba, kob, addax, and pygnuea. 



' Koba, kob, and addax. » Corinna. ^ Lervia, iragocamelus, and leucoryi. 



