Mr. Woods on a new Species of Antelope. 5 
wanting in that species ; the disk on the buttocks is not so circumscribed 
or so well defined as in Ant. personata ; the tail isa mere rudiment; 
and the general colour of the superior parts is bright fulvous red, with a 
cast of crimson. 
Upon seeing the preserved skin of the Bompté-bok, I was much struck 
with the alteration which had taken place in its appearance since its death, 
which brought forcibly to my mind Mr. Waterton’s humourous illustra- 
tion of the effect which stuffing usually has upon the skins of quadrupeds. 
I do not mention this circumstance as calling in question the ability of the 
operator at the Museum of the Zoological Society, whose reputation is 
well deserved, but with the hope of usefully supplying a hint to those 
who might be inclined to derive from such specimens generic or specific 
characters. In all cases some considerable distortions by partial shrink- 
ing and expansion will inevitably take place, and, unless a living specimen 
of the same species exist as a model, it is utterly impossible to preserve 
the true figure of an animal : for how can a correct form be assumed, the 
type of which is totally unknown ? This observation will be well borne 
out by the subjoined enumeration of the principal points of difference 
between the preserved skin and the living animal. 
The head in the former is much shortened ; the ears shrivelled to 
two-thirds of their original size, the internal black bars having lost the 
greater part of their colour ; the mask has likewise shrunk and become 
so pale as scarcely to present a prominent character. From the adoles- 
cence of the specimen, and the consequent great vascularity of the nuclei 
of the horns, their direction has so far changed, during the process of 
drying, that their tips do not at all incline forwards, and the horns them- 
selves, being very thin at their bases, have in shrinking nearly lost the 
annulus ; the neck is too long; the humeral hump has entirely dis- 
appeared; and the body is very much too thin, the skin either having 
shrunk, or been stuffed to the model of some other Antelope; finally, 
the whole of the colours are infinitely lighter and more obscure, having 
totally lost their richness and the evanescent purple hue, which so often 
and so beautifully appears on the fur of Ruminant animals, when seen in 
the vivid freshness of animation. 
