supposed to belong to the Genus Ovis. 1k 
Creator, will confer’ a lasting benefit upon the agricultural and 
manufacturing interests of the community. 
Since writing the foregoing, I have seen the three first volumes 
of the Nouveau Dictionnaire d’ Histoire Naturelle, which work 
is now publishing in Paris; and in the article Antelope, | find 
a description of an American quadruped, which is in the collec- 
tion of the Linnean Society of London. This description ap- 
pears to have been extracted from a memoire, read before the 
Philomatique Society of Paris, by M. de Blainville, wherein the 
author proposes a new arrangement of the ruminants with hol- 
low and persistent horns, and a subdivision of the Genus Anti- 
lope; and classes the above animal under the name of Rupica- 
pra americana. — (Bulletin de la Societé Philomatique, 1816, 
p. 80.) As I have not the satisfaction of seeing the Bulletin, I 
must be content with the information conveyed in the article in 
the Nouveau Dictionnaire. The specimen is said to be of the 
bigness of a middling sized goat; the body is entirely covered 
with long pendent hair, silky and totally white, but not curled ; 
the head is elongated, without a muzzle or naked part; the ears 
of a middling size; the forehead not protuberant; the horns 
are short, tolerably thick, black, slightly annulated, they are 
round, almost straight, bent backwards, and terminated in a 
blunt point (pointe mousse); the legs are short, stout, and sup- 
ported on short and thick hoofs; the tail is hardly perceptible, 
perhaps on account of the length of the hair. M. de Blainville 
inclined to the opinion that this animal is the same as the Pudu 
of Molina, Shaw’s Gen. Zool. vol. ii. p. 392. 
It is probable that the specimen belonging to the Linnean 
Society is of the same species as that brought by Captain Lewis; 
and it is further probable that M. de Blainville was not permitted 
to examine his subject as closely as was requisite, otherwise the 
important circumstance of the thick coat of wool, beneath the 
outer covering of straight hair, would not have escaped his at- 
tention. As to the horns being obtuse, this may have arisen 
from an accident, or some other cause. 
{t is much ¢o be wished that some traveller would bring a 
living specimen of this singular quadruped, or at least a dead 
specimen, in such a state as should enable the naturalist to de- 
termine, with precision, its characters. From the information 
derived from Captain Lewis, and from the descriptions above, 
we cannot, with propriety, arrange this animal with the ante- 
lopes; and if it should not prove to be a true Ovis, it will, 
probably, constitute a new genus, and take its station, in the 
systems, between the sheep and the goat. ‘ 
III, e- 
