18/3.] ON THE GAZELLES OF INDIA AND PERSIA. 313 



1. Note on the Gazelles of India and Persia, with Description 

 of a new Species. By W. T. Blanford, C.M.Z.S. 



[Received February 27, 1873.] 



India is the extreme eastern limit in Southern Asia of the genus 

 Gazella, this form being one of the numerous African types which, 

 although occurring in the Indian peninsula, do not pass to the 

 eastward of the Bay of Bengal. The Indian Gazelle, however, 

 differs to an important extent in its distribution from the other 

 Antelopes of the Indian plains. It extends less to the eastward in 

 India, whilst recent researches have shown it to have a considerable 

 extension to the westward in the countries bordering on India. 

 This peculiarity in the distribution is also connected with the 

 circumstance that, whilst the remaining antelopes of the Indian 

 plains, viz. Antilope cervicapra, Portax pictus, and Tetraceros 

 quadricornis, differ widely in specific and even in generic characters 

 from any of their African allies, and are unconnected with the latter 

 by any existing forms in the intervening tracts of Persia and Arabia, 

 the Gazelle of India is only just specifically separable frjm the 

 nearly allied species in Northern Africa, and cognate races extend 

 throughout the intervening country of South-western Asia. The 

 Nilgai, Four-horned Antelope, and Indian Antelope are, in fact, 

 records of a time when India was connected with Africa across the 

 now intervening ocean, whilst Gazella bennetti is in all probability 

 a comparatively recent immigrant into Southern Asia. 



In my recent journey through Baluchistan and Persia, I have 

 obtained some fresh and interesting evidence as to the extension of 

 the Indian Gazelle to the westward, and of the range in Southern 

 and South-western Persia of the Persian Gazelle, G. subyntturosa. 

 I have also procured from the edge of the Sistan desert a specimen 

 (unfortunately only a female) of a form which, at the first glance, 

 struck me as novel. Since returning to England, Sir Victor Brooke 

 has confirmed my opinion that this belongs to an hitherto undescribed 

 Gazelle, belonging to the type of Gazella dorcas and G. bennetti. I 

 ought to add that I have for some years past, in India, paid particular 

 attention to the range of G. bennetti in that country ; and I shall 

 endeavour in the present paper to give what is known on the 

 subject. 



1. Gazella subgutturosa. 



The Persian Gazelle* is entirely restricted to the high land of 

 Persia, and is, so far as I know, not found either on the plains of 

 Mesopotamia or on the coasts of the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. 

 It is pretty generally known that in Persia the land rises somewhat 

 rapidly, at a distance usually of 1 00 to 1 50 miles from the sea, into 

 ranges of mountains varying in height from 8,000 or 10,000 to 

 15,000 and even 18,000 feet, beyond which again, after passing 



* For many details as to the distribution of this animal I am indebted to my 

 friend Major St. John. R.E. 



