OF THE HOLLOW-HORNED RUMINANTS. 41 



Throughout this long and complicated definition, the inguinal pores and short tail are 

 the only characters which the authors even pretend to be common to all the species ; 

 and this, as far as I'egards the inguinal pores, is far from being the fact ; the rest are 

 utterly inapplicable in practice, from the uncertainty in which they are involved and 

 the exceptions to which they are liable ; so that, instead of being enabled to recognize 

 species by the definition of M. De Blainville, it is necessary to have a previous know- 

 ledge of the species, in order to understand the definition. This is reversing the ordi- 

 nary purpose and practical use of all systematic arrangement, and it is not surprising, 

 therefore, that Baron Cuvier, even so lately as 1829, on the occasion of publishing the 

 second edition of the ' R^gne Animal,' should have rejected so fallacious a system, and 

 returned to the old method of subdivision, according to the form and curvature of the 

 horns. 



In a scientific point of view, De Blainville's distribution of the Antelopes was of ad- 

 vantage to zoology, by introducing among the characters of the genus the consideration 

 of the muzzle, a very important part of the structure of these animals, which IlUger 

 had already employed ; but this advantage was more than counterbalanced by the accu- 

 mulation of purely trivial and arbitrary characters with which it is mixed up, such as 

 the mere form and curvature of the horns, the existence of scopse and inguinal pores, 

 the length of the tail, the number of mammae, and even the presence of longitudinal 

 dark bands on the flanks. 



Next in succession came the monograph of Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith, which 

 was published in 1827, and occupies the greater portion of the fourth volume of Grif- 

 fith's translation of the ' R^gne Animal.' The principal merit of Colonel Smith's me- 

 moir consists in the resolution of the residual group of De Blainville and Desmarest, 

 which he subdivides into eight minor groups, in all respects more definite and natural 

 than the original ; his other groups coincide, for the most part, with the divisions of these 

 naturalists, except that species are occasionally removed, not always judiciously, from 

 one division to another. As a monograph. Colonel Smith's work is extremely defective : 

 it bears every mark of having been hastily written, and without a proper regard to criti- 

 cism in the selection of its materials ; it is entirely without synonyms, references, or 

 any quotation of authorities ; the specific descriptions are generally vague, often imper- 

 fect, and seldom or never comparative ; the specific characters are generally compiled, 

 chiefly from Desmarest, and are frequently erroneous ; and the generic and subgeneric 

 diagnoses as vague, complicated, confused, and burthened with trivial characters, as can 

 well be imagined. Out of eighty species enumerated and described in this memoir, at 

 least twenty-four are purely nominal ; eight others were doubtful at the period of Colonel 

 Smith's publication (of which, however, three or four have since been satisfactorily au- 

 thenticated) , and four belong to difierent genera ; so that upon the whole the number of 

 authentic species does not materially differ from that given by Desmarest. Of the 

 twenty-four nominal species, again. Colonel Smith is himself answerable for the intro- 



VOL. III. PART I. u 



