Feb. 23, 1882] 
NATURE 
391 
farmer in France in doubt as to the name of a pear, or 
how to manage an intractable graft would hesitate to 
apply to the Professeur de Culture on the subject. It 
was curious to turn from the bustle of the Parisian streets 
into the country-town like repose of the Rue Cuvier, where 
Decaisne was almost always to be found at work in his 
small red-tiled study lined with books, and ever delighted 
with urbane and old-fashioned courtesy to do the honours 
of the establishment. In the work of his latter life there 
was little room for epoch-making discovery. But his 
splendid “Jardin Fruitier du Muséum” is a monument of 
patient labour on the cultivated forms of fruit-plants 
elaborated in the thorough spirit of the naturalist ; and its 
value will, in a scientific point of view gain with time 
when the races figured and described in it are supplanted 
and lost. Students of the future will turn to Decaisne’s 
laborious pages to compare the stages of variation which 
he has permanently recorded. In much other work of 
this class he had the collaboration of his friend Naudin, 
now director of the botanical station at Thuret’s country 
seat at Antibes, which his heirs presented to the French 
Government. 
In the other side of the work of the Jardin des Plantes 
Decaisne was no less industrious. With minute scrupu- 
losity he was always occupied with the elaboration of care- 
ful descriptions of new and interesting genera and species 
of plants, and the pages of his great ‘‘ Traité générale de 
Botanique”’ (published with Le Maout, but of which the 
great bulk is based on Decaisne’s life-long studies), are 
everywhere enriched with the results of his dissections. 
Of the first edition of this admirable survey of the vege- 
table kingdom an English translation by the late Mrs. 
Hooker, edited by Sir Joseph Hooker, was published in 
this country. He published at frequent intervals through 
his long life much excellent systematic work of a more 
detailed kind. 
Decaisne’s turn of mind was essentially precise and 
matter-of-fact. Perhaps for this reason the doctrines of 
evolution which in England and in Germany have given 
a new impulse to biological study, had little interest for 
him. He would triumphantly show crops of a cruciferous 
plant raised in front of the physiological laboratory under 
wire-gauze for many successive years. “There is no de- 
parture,’’ he would say, “so far from the specific type,” 
and beyond this kind of evidence he did not seem to care 
to go. Not that his mind was wanting in flexibility tonew 
ideas ; he warmly supported the investigations made by 
Bornet in confirmation of Schwendener's theory as to the 
nature of lichens—a subject on which most persons 
accustomed to the view that they are autonomous 
organisms, feel almost as strongly as if they were pos- 
sessors of a vested interest menaced by Act of Parliament. 
Decaisne was long associated with Brongniart in edit- 
ing the botanical series of the Annales des Sciences 
Naturelles, and on his death became sole editor. In 
1877 he was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal 
Society. He was unmarried, and to his devoted friend 
Bornet fell the melancholy lot of watching his last 
moments and closing his eyes. 
W. T. THISELTON DYER 
ILLUSTRATIONS OF NEW OR RARE ANIMALS 
IN THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY’S LIVING 
COLLECTION* 
: AAG 
14. {Pes GORAL (Nemorhedus goral).—The “ Goral,” 
or “Gooral” of the Himalayan sportsmen is 
one of the groups of Goat-like or “ Mountain” Antelopes, 
of which we have previously had an example in the 
Japanese Goat-Antelope (Capricornis crispa) figur2d in a 
previous article (NATURE, vol. xxiii. p. 488), but is slightly 
divergent in form, and in some respects perhaps more 
1 Continued from p. 293. 
nearly allied to our familiar Chamois of the Alps and 
Apennines. In its general habit, as Dr. Jerdon tells us, 
the Goral is very caprine in appearance; the back is 
somewhat arched, and the limbs are stout and moderately 
long, which renders it well adapted both for climbing and 
jumping, The Goral inhabits the whole range of Hima- 
layas from Bhotan and Sikim to Kashmir, at a range 
varying from a little above 3000 to nearly 8000 feet, 
though most co.umon at about 5000 or 6000 feet. It is 
also found in the Sewalik Hills. According to Capt. 
Kinloch it is the least wild of all the Himalayan game- 
animals, and may often be seen in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood of the large hill-stations of Simla, Mussourie, 
and Nynee Tal. Its favourite haunts, we are told by the 
same distinguished sportsman, are the valleys of the 
Ganges and the Jumna and their tributaries ; in the pro- 
vince of Chamba, north of Sikim, they are said to be 
particularly numerous. 
Gorals in their native wilds are not truly gregarious, 
but are either met with in small parties of three or four, 
or in pairs. Their special resorts are steep rocky hills 
thinly sprinkled with forest, where they lie concealed in 
the daytime, and come out to feed in the morning and 
evening. Where the ground is much broken, Capt. 
Kinloch informs us, they are not difficult to stalk, and 
when at all plentiful afford good sport, and are capital 
objects of pursuit to the young sportsmen who may not 
be up to the “ grande chasse’? of the Himalayan Ibex. 
Our figure (Fig. 14) represents a young male of this 
species, which was received from Calcutta by the Zoologi- 
cal Society in March, 1881, and is the first Goral that has 
been exhibited in their gardens. 
15. The Burrhel Sheep (Ovzs durrhel).—The various 
species of wild sheep are widely distributed over the 
mountain-chains of the Palaearctic region, one only—the 
Big-horn of the Rocky Mountains—being found in Ame- 
rica. In Europe the only Sheep now existing in a wild 
state is confined to the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, 
where the Moufflon (Ovzs musimon) occurs under two 
slightly different forms. But in our new possession of 
Cyprus a second species (Ovzs cyprius) occurs. and a 
closely allied form (O. gaelinz) is found in the mountains 
of Asia Minor. The various mountain-groups of Central 
Asia are tenanted each by its own species of wild sheep 
(Ovts karelini, O. poli, O. argali, &c.), in some of which 
the horns attain a prodigious development, and, in order 
to render them able to support such a burden, the 
animals themselves are necessarily of enormous size and 
strength. In Kamschatka the representative of the 
sheep is the fine O. xzvicola of Eschscholtz, discovered 
during Ketzebue’s second expedition, which, as might 
have been naturally expected, comes nearest to the 
American “ Bighorn.” 
Cn the confines of India four or five species of wild 
sheep come within the grasp of the collector and sportsman, 
though the genus has in fact nothing to do with the true 
Indian fauna. One of these (Ov7s cycloceros) is an in- 
habitant of the Salt-range of the Punjab It is replaced 
in Afghanistan by the recently described O. d/anford:, 
and in Cashmere by Vigne’s wild sheep (QO. vzguez). On 
the main chain of the Himalayas two fine species of 
wild sheep attract the attention of our sporting fellow- 
countrymen whose destinies take them to India. One of 
these, commonly called the Ammon, though not strictly 
entitled to that appellation,! is confined to the undulating 
highlands of Tibet, the other, although also an inhabitant 
of lofty ranges, occurs in many parts of the southern 
slopes of the Himalayas. This is the Burrhel, or 
Nahoor (Ovzs burrhel), of which we now give a figure 
(Fig. 15), from two young examples recently added to the 
Zoological Society’s collection. 
The Burrhel, or blue wild sheep, Dr. Jerdon tells us, 
1 The Ovis ammon of Linnzus is the same as O. avgadi : the proper name 
for the Himalayan *‘Ammon”’ seems to be O. /odgsonz, Blyth. 
