74 NATURAL HISTORY 



they, being naturally straight or small, did not admit 

 air sufficient to serve them when they travelled, or 



several predecessors has been precisely similar. He widely expands the 

 suborbital sinus, 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 against the hand, either thrusting it repeat- 

 edly or rubbing it. The peculiar odour is freely imparted to the substance 

 rubbed, but seems to offer no special attraction to his senses: he neither 

 smells to it remarkably, nor licks it. The second male, whose horns 

 have about three-fourths of their full growth, and whose rich colours are 

 only less deep than those of his more aged neighbour, acts in a similar 

 manner. His suborbital sinus, though strongly developed, is not so 

 extensive as that of the older animal : in its quiet state it is scarcely 

 completely closed, so thick are its lips; in its condition of excitement it 

 is widely expanded. The animal then thrusts it at the offered hand ; 

 but does not exhibit an equal readiness to rub it. The youngest male is 

 evidently immature ; its horns have only commenced making their first 

 spiral turn, and its colour is the fawn of the female, with her pale stripe 

 along the side : for in the Indian antelope, as in most animals in which the 

 adult males differ in colour from the females, the young of both sexes are 

 similarly coloured, and resemble the dam. In this individual the sub- 

 orbital sinus is small; its lips are closely applied to each other; and 

 they are but slightly moved when the animal is interested : if he uses his 

 nose, the sac is called into moderate action. He cares little for the 

 odour of his older relatives. The remaining specimen was probably of 

 nearly the same age with this younger male when that occurred which, 

 while it allowed of the animal's increasing in bulk, checked the develope- 

 nn nt of the external characters that belong to the mature male. Its advance 

 towards perfection was arrested while the female livery of the young 

 animal was yet retained, and its colour is the fawn of the female with 

 the side marked lengthways by her paler line. Its horn too, normal in its 

 character as far as a point corresponding with the early part of the first 

 spiral turn, and about this point regularly ringed, afterwards loses the 

 form characteristic of the species, and instead of being completed by a 

 continuous series of spiral turns, surrounded by strongly marked rings, 

 becomes smooth, continues slender, and is directed backwards in one 

 single large sweep; forming a horn altogether monstrous, and one which 

 is sheep-like, though infinitely weak, rather than antilopine : only one 

 such horn remains. In this animal the suborbital sinus is not more 

 developed than in the youngest and immature male, and it is quite 

 unused: the sinus is little more than a mark existing in the ordinary 

 situation, and no motion whatever is observed in its lips; it is not 

 applied to any substance brought near to it, the nose being usually 

 employed. A finger loaded with the secretion from the sac of the mature 

 male is smelt to by this individual ; and is then freely licked : perhaps 

 on account of its saltness alone, but probably also on account of some 

 other and peculiar attraction. The same cause which induced the 



