526 DihliofjrnpMcal Notices. 



coroses, Ancient and ifodern." Eeadiiig them at the time, they 

 seemed exactly suited to the tastes of that class of sportsmen who 

 take an intelligent, though perhaps secondary, interest in natural 

 history. The descrii)tions were not too technical, and there were few 

 hard names, while the geographical distrihution of the various 

 families, genera, and species was sketched in a manner well calcu- 

 lated to stimulate further research and enterprise among visitors to 

 wild countries, especially to the elevated districts of Central Asia, as 

 well as some portions of the Indian region. For instance, the 

 remark that no Englishman has ever shot — or, it is believed, so 

 much as seen — a Takin (Badorcas taxicolor) alive, although this 

 antelope dwells within sight of British Assam, would be likely to 

 stir up some keen sportsman to circumvent, if possible, the p.jlitieal 

 restrictions which are the cause of this reproach ; and, for the 

 matter of that, it is about time that we imitated the Kussians in 

 prosecuting our " purely scientific " explorations a little more l)oldlv. 

 The more reflective — we had almost said ruminative — sportsman 

 will find material for thought in the statement that " although all 

 living wild oxen have horns in both sexes, yet certain fossil species 

 are known in which these were absent in at least the females : and 

 it has been suggested that it is due to this circumstance that ' polled ' 

 races of oxen are so readily produced, this being, in fact, a reversion 

 to a condition in which both sexes of the ruminants were normally 

 hornless." Perhaps he may think there is a good deal in this, and 

 argue that, because the tail-less variety known as the " Manx '" cat 

 is so readily produced, therefore the ancestor of the domestic puss 

 was deficient in a caudal appendage — an analogy which incii/ be 

 false ! But, enough of the sportsman : let us turn to the naturalist, 

 of whose notice Mr. Lydekker hopes that the work may not prove 

 unAvorthy. Undoubtedly tliere are many things, in this collection 

 of odds and ends, of which the average " naturalist" can bear to lie 

 reminded. It cannot be too often dinned into him that the 

 "aurochs" is the extinct Avild ox, and is vot the European bison ; 

 or that the musk-ox is not merely " found," but is plentiful, in some 

 parts of Greenland (a fact unknown to the author of the article in 

 tbe " Big Game volumes"' of the Badminton series, and, it would seem, 

 to most of the reviewers of that work). Xot every naturalist 

 realizes that the great preponderance of antelopes in Africa is merely 

 a feature of the present eiuich, and that there is strong evidence that 

 this group i)reviout;ly inhabited Southern Europe and Asia, wheiu-e 

 it was partially driven by climatal and other changes. Xor does 

 every one know that the '• lionian-uosed" Saiga antelope, of the 

 Kirghiz steppes, was found in Eastern Poland a century ago, and 

 that not only are the remains of representatives of the genus found 

 in Moravia and in the south of Erance, but also in Belgium, while 

 in ISl'O the frontlet and horn-cores of a male were actually obtained 

 in the Pleistocene deposits of the Thames Valley. Many similar 

 points might be cited, and, so far, we have nothing except pi aisc for 

 Mr. Lydekker ; but for the naturalist it was not sufficient to string 

 together a lot of articles, and to recast some of them, with the 



