TRANSACTIONS 
OF 
THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 

I. On the Mhorr Antelope. By E. T. Bennert, Esq., F.L.S., Sec. Z.S8. 
Communicated January 8, 1833. 
PLINY appears, with one exception, to be the only author of antiquity who distin- 
guishes the Dama of the classical ages by any tangible characters ; and even his slight 
notices are confined to its transmarine origin', and the forward curvature of its horns?. 
In other writers the word, although of frequent occurrence, is accompanied only by 
vague epithets, indicative for the most part of gentleness, timidity, and velocity. Thus 
we have in Horace? the epithet ‘‘ pavide”’; in Virgil‘, “‘ timidi”; in Martial, ‘‘ molles', 
imbelles®”; in Seneca’, ‘‘ veloces’’; and in Columella’, ‘‘ velocissime”’ ;—all applied 
to the Dame, which appear, from the constant references made to them about that 
period, to have been well known at Rome in the times of the earlier Cesars. The ex- 
ception above noticed occurs in the fragment of the Halieuticon, generally ascribed to 
Ovid and at all events written by a contemporary author, and merely determines the 
animal to have had a fawn-coloured back, and to have been an object of the chase’. 
In this latter particular the writer, whoever he may have been, is confirmed by Virgil'® 
and Columella'!. It seems scarcely probable that an animal so well known, and com- 
'« Sunt et damz, et pygargi, et strepsicerotes, multaque alia haud dissimilia—hee transmarini situs mit- 
tunt.” Lib. viii. cap. 53. 
* « Cornua—in rupicapris in dorsum adunca, damis in adversum.”’ Lib. xi. cap. 37. 
* Carm. lib. i. Od. 2. + Eel. 8,28; and Georg. lib. iii.539. ° Epig. lib. iv. 35. 
® Epig. lib. xiii. 91. 7 Hippol. 61. 8 De Re Rust. (ed. Schn.) lib. vii. cap. 12. 
9 « Altera pars fidens pedibus dat terga sequenti : 
Ut pavidi Lepores, ut fulvo tergore Dame 
Et capto fugiens Cervus sine fine timore.”—Hal. (ed. Gesn.) p. 4. 
10 Georg. lib. iii. 410. ‘1 Joc. cit. 
VOL. I. B 
