48 MR. OGILBY'S MONOGRAPH 



vague and indefinite notions of resemblance, picked out certain species which they chose 

 to consider as composing a subgenus, and then elaborated the definition of the group thus 

 formed from the characters, as far as they knew them, of the component species. The 

 first process is the result of true philosophical induction, provided the characters as- 

 sumed have been previously ascertained, by a detailed and careful study of the indi- 

 vidual species, to be those which actually influence the habits and oeconomy of the 

 animals, and will infalUbly lead to a natural and scientific classification where the cha- 

 racters are properly chosen ; nay, even where the choice is purely arbitrary, it will at 

 least produce a simple, logical, and definite agroupment, though of course the compo- 

 sition of the different groups may be heterogeneous and unnatural ; the second is pure 

 undisguised empiricism, and must invariably produce the complications, contradictions, 

 exceptions, and accumulation of trivial and unimportant characters which have been 

 already noticed, and that too without being in any degree more natural or homogeneous 

 than divisions formed on the opposite system. 



Having thus demonstrated the imperfections of the actual distribution of hollow- 

 horned Ruminants, the arbitrary and indefinite limits of the difl'erent genera, and the 

 trivial, variable, and unsuitable nature of the characters employed to distinguish them ; 

 having traced the origin, progress, and extent of the evil, and shown the necessity of a 

 searching and effectual reform ; — it only remains for me, before proceeding to the expo- 

 sition of the principles which I propose to make use of for this purpose, to state the 

 sources of my own knowledge, and explain the nature and extent of my researches. 

 When I commenced the study of the genus Antilope, so long ago as the year 1830, the 

 museums of this country were extremely deficient in specimens of this family ; certainly 

 not more than ten or a dozen perfect species were contained in the National Collection 

 and that of the Zoological Society together, and these were of the commonest forms ; so 

 that I was not at that time within reach of sufficient materials for the study of specific 

 differences, much less of generic relations. Scanty as they were, however, the museums 

 just mentioned, that of the Missionary Society and a collection of Cape mammalogy, 

 formed by M. Villet, and exhibited at the Egyptian Hall in the year 1828, contained 

 enough to convince me of the perfectly arbitrary and unphilosophical composition of the 

 genus Antilope ; and from that moment I set myself seriously to study the essential cha- 

 racters and habits of the individual species, with the view of arriving at such generaliza- 

 tions as should at once embrace the natural relations of the animals, and place their 

 classification on the basis of a firm philosophical induction. The arrival of Mr. Steed- 

 man's extensive collection of South African mammals in 1833 was an important addition 

 to my previous stock of materials ; and the collections of the Zoological Society and 

 British Museum — the former containing at the present moment forty-six distinct species, 

 and the latter very nearly as many — increased with a rapidity far beyond my most san- 

 guine hopes. Since that period I have carefully examined and compared the magnifi- 

 cent collections of Leyden, Frankfort, and Paris ; that of the South African Society, 



