Zoological Society. 223 
visions, however, are exceedingly well imagined, and less encumbered 
with trivial characters than those of De Blainville and Hamilton 
Smith. 
M. De Blainville, whose monograph of the genus Antilope was 
published in 1816, contented himself with separating from the main 
group successive detachments of what he conceives to be the most 
anomalous species, afterwards elaborating the characters of the sub- 
genera thus formed from those of their component species. By this 
means he has unquestionably succeeded in forming a few natural 
groups, to which no other objection can be made than that they are 
considered as subdivisions of a primary group which is not itself a 
natural genus. 
To the eight genera established by De Blainville, Desmarest ad- 
ded three others, two of which, viz. the separation of the Antelopes 
proper from the Koodoo and Boshbok, and of the Oryxes, were de- 
cided improvements. 
The principal merit of Col. Hamilton Smith’s monograph, pub- 
lished in Griffith’s translation of the ‘ Régne Animal,’ consists in the 
resolution of the residual group of De Blainville and Desmarest, 
which he subdivides into eight minor groups, in all respects more 
definite and natural than the original. 
The next section of the paper is devoted to the consideration of 
the characters hitherto employed in the generic distribution of these 
animals, 
The genera Bos, Ovis, and Capra, represented by familiar and 
well-known types, observes Mr. Ogilby, carried with them clear 
and definite ideas, and represented to the mind of the naturalist di- 
stinct and determined forms; but the genus Antilope not being ex- 
emplified by any common domestic species familiar to the observa- 
tion of the student, every thing connected with the genus was vague 
and indeterminate ; the only conception it enabled him to form was, 
that the animal, whatever else it might be, was neither an ox, a 
sheep, nora goat. ‘The characters, moreover, upon which this genus 
is established, are in reality so many negative traits, and merely 
served tu distinguish all other hollow-horned Ruminants from the 
oxen, sheep, and the goats respectively, but they limit no positive 
group, and consequently cannot be received as the definition of a 
natural genus. The genus Antilope in a short time became an 
asylum for the reception of all hollow-horned Ruminants that 
could not be associated with the known genera Bos, Ovis, and Capra ; 
and consequently the most incongruous forms and opposite charac- 
ters were associated in the same genus; till, independently of its un- 
philosophical structure, and total. want of character whether natural 
or artificial, the practical inconvenience arising from its undue ex- 
tension forced zoologists to devise the partial remedies detailed 
above, and which all proceeded upon one common principle, that, 
namely, of dividing the genus Antilope into such subordinate groups 
as were conceived best calculated to obviate the inconsistencies, and. 
approximate those species which most nearly resembled one an- 
other in habit and conformation. In thus subdividing the genus An- 
