280 ORDER VIII. 



ANTILOPINA, * or great genus Antelope, embrac- 

 ing more species than all the other ruminants taken 

 together, although it is said to have no typical group 

 or species, as if Nature planned her purposes accord- 

 ing to the cabalistical interpretation we think fit to 

 bestow upon certain words. We consider every 

 real species as constituting its own type, notwith- 

 standing that it may, or may not have affinities, ap- 

 proximations, similitudes, or analogies with others, 

 which science, for the convenience of generalisation, 

 forms into groups and juxtapositions, but can never 

 so wholly arrange, as to do away with much that 

 is arbitrary. We begin with the 



Sub-genus DICRANOCERUS, or Prong-horned An- 

 telopes of America, which it is now admitted are of 

 two species, A. palmata being ascertained to reside 

 in the mountains of Mexico, and most likely much 

 further to the north, although the local name, Be- 

 renda, as in the case of Mazama, is really applied 

 to other ruminants, such as the Californian Sheep, 

 and A.furcifer of the Missouri. 



* We regret that in the Synopsis of Ruminantia, in Griffith's 

 Cuvier, we did not note every species of which we had figures, 

 about eighteenths, as the want of such reference seems to 

 have been since generally felt. We possess at present above 

 one hundred drawings of Antelopes alone, exclusive of de- 

 tails. 



