SPIEACULA OF ANIMALS. 57 



slit up the nostrils of such asses as were hard worked ; for 

 they, being naturally strait or small, did not admit air suffi- 

 cient to serve them when they travelled or laboured in that 

 hot climate. And we know that grooms and gentlemen of 



creditable to naturalists to have now to speculate, may be designed for the 

 promotion of that intimate acquaintance between animals of the same species 

 which a primary law of nature requires; but it would be difficult to explain 

 in what manner they may avail to such an end. That they have some con- 

 nection with the full development of the animal powers will appear, I think, 

 from the consideration of a series of individuals now living at the Zoological 

 Society's Gardens. 



Among the whole of the deer and antelopes that are provided with suborbital 

 sinuses, none have them more strongly marked than the Indian antelope ; and 

 in none of those animals are they more frequently brought into use. A fully 

 grown male, the moment you approach him, throws back his head, and thrusts 

 himself rapidly forwards, as though about to make an attack ; but the back- 

 ward direction of his long spirally twisted horns, and the freedom with which 

 he offers to you his exposed neck and chest, are scarcely indicative of a hostile 

 movement. He has at this time fully expanded the large bag beneath his eye ; 

 its thick lips, which pout considerably in the quiet state of the animal, are 

 widely separated and thrown back ; and the intervening space is actually 

 everted, the base of the sac forming a projection instead of a hollow. We 

 see the bare skin, covered only by a coating of a dark ceruminous secre- 

 tion. This, if the hand be within his reach, the animal attempts to rub against 

 the knuckles ; and we then feel that, though the lining skin of the sac has no 

 general covering of hair, it is not destitute of a few bristles, which grate 

 against the finger subjected to the friction. The friction is evidently agreeable 

 to the animal, for it is often repeated ; at times, it is even continued for a 

 minute or two. After the finger has been subjected for some time to this 

 rubbing, it will be found to have acquired a heavy odour of a salt and peculiar 

 character. 



The Zoological Society has at present, in its gardens in the Regent's Park, 

 four individuals of the Indian antelope : an adult and aged male, brought by 

 Col. Sj kes from Bombay, and presented to the Society nearly five years ago ; a 

 younger, yet adult, male that was presented in an immature condition, about two 

 years since ; an immature male lately arrived, and in about the same state of 

 development as that in which the last-mentioned individual was when he was 

 originally presented ; and an emasculated specimen of full growth. The series 

 is singularly complete as regards one sex ; the other sex has not yet been 

 possessed by the society, and is, indeed, rarely seen in Europe. Destitute of 

 horns, and never acquiring the rich deep colour of the males, the female is 

 probably considered as less worthy of exportation from the native country of 

 the species. 



During the time that the old male has remained in the Gardens, he has 

 constantly behaved in the manner described above ; the conduct of his several 

 predecessors has been precisely similar. He widely expands the suborbital 

 sinr.s, and brings it near to any substance offered to him ; he might even be 

 suspected of a disposition to test, by some special sense lodged in it, the nature 

 of the substance offered : but he usually drives the naked and everted skin 



