56 MR. OGILBY'S MONOGRAPH 



thou"-h it suffers some exceptions in the case of the Oryxes and a few species of Gazelles ; 

 but it is clear that their daring and independent character, their fierce spirit, and the 

 weakness and evanescence of the sexual tie, are directly attributable to this circumstance, 

 since the females, being provided with arms as well as the males, are equally free and 

 independent, and neither require nor seek for protection. 



It follows naturally from these considerations, that a character which so powerfully 

 influences the habits and manners of the Ruminantia ought not to be neglected or un- 

 dervalued among the principles of their generic distribution. 



4. The fourth and last view under which it is necessary to consider the horns of the 

 Ruminants as affording characters for generic distinction, is with regard to the number, 

 form, and peculiar curvatures of these organs; and (1.) as to their numher. In a state 

 of nature this is almost invariably two ; the Chouka or Chousinga {A. pseudoceros, n. s.), 

 indeed, has an indication of a second or spurious pair of horns in front of the real 

 ones ; but the Chickara alone naturally possesses four ; though this, and even a greater 

 number, are occasionally seen in particular breeds of domestic Sheep. Dr. Leach 

 formerly proposed to found, upon this character, a genus for the reception of the 

 Chickara, to which he gave the name of Tetraceros ; but the suggestion met with 

 no favour from contemporary naturalists, and it deserved none ; for since the mere 

 numher of the horns cannot be conceived to have the most remote influence upon 

 the animal oeconomy, it is manifestly unfit to be made the basis of generic distinc- 

 tion in any arrangement founded upon natural and scientific principles. (2.) As to 

 the form of the horns : of this there are two principal varieties, the simple and the 

 branched, and these, with a few slight exceptions, are confined to the hollow- and solid- 

 horned families respectively. Hollow horns are all simple except in the solitary in- 

 stance of the Prongbuck ; but the peculiar forms and curvatures which they assume are 

 extremely various. They are prismatic in the Sheep, compressed in the Goats and 

 Gazelles, depressed in the Buffalos, cyhndrical in the Oryxes and some bovine species ; 

 sometimes they are smooth, sometimes scabrous or striated, but most commonly annu- 

 lated or marked in front with large projecting knobs, as in the Ibex : in the common 

 Gnoo, the Musk Ox and the Bos caffer, the base of the horn expands into a solid helmet 

 which covers the whole forehead of the animal ; and this circumstance, so totally unim- 

 portant, and neither peculiar to the Gnoo nor common to its allied species, has neverthe- 

 less been made one of the leading characters of Colonel Smith's proposed genus Catoblepas; 

 a name, by the way, which is very improperly bestowed upon a South African species 

 of which the ancients could have no knowledge, and which really belongs to the great 

 Buffalo of Ethiopia. The branched form, again, is common to all the solid-horned Ru- 

 minants except the Giraffe and the pricket-horned Deer of South America. Generally 

 speaking the beam or principal shaft of the horn is long and cylindrical, with a variable 

 number of antlers or branches projecting from it ; but in the Elk, Reindeer, Fallow 

 Deer, and some fossil species, it is more or less flattened Uke the palm of the hand, and 



