143 



Great confusion is often caused by Indian sportsmen, and others 

 using native terms, after most liberal notions of orthography and 

 pronunciation, while writing or speaking of animals that have well 

 defined names in natural history. 



We have no more right to call an Indian animal by his local 

 name, which may vary, it must be remembered with almost every 

 district, instead of employing that by which he may be designated 

 in any work on natural history, than we should have, while writing 

 to a foreigner, an account of a run with fox-hounds, to use the 

 Scotch instead of the English word for the animal they were in 

 pursuit of. 



No- 69- Nemorhcedus- 



JERDON, No. 230, PAGE 283 ; SEROW OR FOREST GOAT. 



When I was quartered at Shuaygheen, on the Sitang river in 

 Burmah, a female of, I think, this species was brought alive to 

 Major Berdmore, the Assistant Commissioner, by some Burmans 

 who had caught it in the river ; by which it had probably washed 

 down by some flood from the Karenee mountains. As far as I can 

 remember it was much more black than " red-brown," and there- 

 fore it could hardly have been "N. Rubida, page 284." It was 

 even in its exhausted and dying state exceedingly savage, butting 

 at every one who approached it, so that I can readily believe that, as 

 stated by Jerdon, it can keep the wild dog at bay. The horns 

 were about ten inches in length not much curved backwards. 

 It is, I have been told, a forest animal, but its high hoofs, strong 

 limbs and goat-like appearance, gave me the idea of an animal that 

 inhabited reeky mountain tops as does our Neilgherry wild 

 goat or ibex. 



No- 70- Hemitragus Hylocrius. 



JERDON, No. 233, PAGE 288 ; THE IBEX OF SPORTSMEN IN 



THE MADRAS PRESIDENCY. 

 Neilgherry Wild-goat of Jerdon. 



This fine goat is so little known even to Indian sportsmen and 

 naturalists, except to those few who have been so fortunate as to 

 be stationed within reach of its fastnesses among the awful [I do 



