364 Sport and Life. 



be found to represent a new group, which he called Oreamnos* and 

 announced that this group would be fully described in a forthcoming work, 

 which, however, was never given to the world. 



A little later, in 1822, came Hamilton Smith's excellent description in 

 the Linnean Transactions, accompanied by a figure which, so far as I know, 

 is to-day much the most life-like and the best that has been published. 

 Smith had before him a complete specimen of Mazama montana, and thus 

 avoided some of the mistakes committed by American writers. He 

 regarded the animal as an antelope. 



Misled by the fact that the white antelope lives among the rocks and 

 has a tuft of hair on its chin, Harlan and Godman called it a goat (Capra), 

 as did also Richardson in 1829, Baird in 1852, Audubon and Bachman in 

 1853, and the Prince of Wied in 1862, while Fischer, who in 1829 quoted 

 from Desmoulins (Dictionnaire Classique d'Histoire Naturelle), throws 

 doubt upon this generic reference by writing Capra (?) columbiana. 



It is not strange that Liiben should have remarked in his Saugethiere 

 that it is difficult from the descriptions to know whether this is an antelope 

 or a goat. 



In 1827 Hamilton Smith formed the sub-genus Aplocerus, which was 

 adopted by Turner in 1850, by Richardson in 1852, and in this country by 

 Baird in 1857, by Coues and Yarrow in their excellent Report of the 

 Zoology of the Surveys West of the looth Meridian, and generally in the 

 Government reports. Rafinesque's name Mazama was revived in 1850 

 by J. E. Gray in the Knowsley Menagerie, in his paper in the Proceedings 

 of the Zoological Society, and in his various catalogues down to 1873, an d 

 was then laid aside until brought up by Dr. Gill in his catalogue of the 

 " Collection to Illustrate the Animal Resources of the United States," 

 which is a " List of the Principal Useful or Injurious Mammals," a paper 

 published in connection with the Centennial Exhibition in 1876. 



The generic name Oplacerus, proposed by Haldeman in 1842 (Proc. 

 Phil. Acad. Sci., pp. 187-188), to take the place of Mazama, only needs to 

 be alluded to, to say that it evidently has no connection with the species 

 under consideration. To .what use of the term Mazama he referred seems 

 uncertain, but that it was not to the white antelope is made evident by the 

 reason advanced for the adoption of the name Oplacerus instead of 

 Mazama, " this [latter] name having been preapplied to Ovis or Capra 

 montana, Ord, by Rafinesque." 



Almost as many specific as generic names have been given to this, 

 animal. Ord, translating the English name given it by the explorers who 



* Am. Month. Mag., Vol. II., 1817, p. 44. 



