338 DR. J. MURIE ON THE [May 26, 
As a whole, it may be said that in its skeleton minus the skull it 
differs little if at all from most Antilopidee, and in less or greater de- 
grees is unconformable to the other horned and hornless Ruminantia. 
When the cranium is studied and made a subject of analysis as 
to its taxonomie relations, oddly enough it perplexes, by the confor- 
mation of its structure and bearings to different Ruminant groups. 
The horn-cores in composition and place are those of the tribe Bo- 
vide—not situated, however, as in the Oxen, the majority of Ante- 
lopes, the Sheep, and the true Goats, but after the fashion of the small 
section of the so-called Caprine Antelopes—that is, erect and supra- 
orbital ; but they differ from those of the latter group and closely 
simulate true Goat’s horn-cores in their breadth and compression. 
We detect antilopine or caprine formation in the non-depression 
of the lachrymal bone, in the jutting-out of the orbits, in the con- 
tour of the horizontal palatal plate, in the convexity of the glenoid 
surface, in the rather rudimentary development of the postarticular 
ridge, and, lastly, in the ensheathment of the styloid process. 
To mateh these, diagnostic points as conspicuously cervine (and 
partially true bovine) obtain. There are the general flattening of 
the upper surface of the skull, the bifurcate, pointed, and widely 
posterior nasals, the great size of the supraorbital fissure, the 
forking of the subanterior portion of the maxilla, the large supra- 
orbital foramen, the nearly vertical and relatively flat supraoccipi- 
tal, the differently set and ridged condyle, the broad triangular 
flattish and small tuberculate basioccipital, and, finally, the mode- 
rate-sized triangular auditory bulla. 
There is yet to be added to the specialities of this anomalous 
Ruminant the Giraffe characters of (1) no false hoofs (met with, 
however, in Calotragus campestris), and (2) Deer-pronged and 
periodically shed horns. 
Now, from a review of the foregoing anatomy and externals of the 
Prongbuck, if I were asked by a single term to denote what the 
animal is, I should be obliged to Germanize the English phraseology 
and name it a Giraffe-hoofed, Sheep-haired, Deer-headed, Goat- 
glanded Antelope—an expression however rugged, yet explicit 
enough to baffle those who are sceptical of gradational forms. 
This much for the first premise from which I started, and which 
bears out significantly in living forms those tentative remarks con- 
cerning the interblending of ruminant types which the excellent 
M. Albert Gaudry utters in his general considerations of the 
* Animaux Fossiles de l’Attique”’ (Paris, 1862, p. 356). 
In regard to the second premise, its place—judging from the 
totality of structure (excluding the brain, not examined), it appears 
to me that the proposal to rank the Cabrit as a family per se (Anti- 
locapride) merits attention. Notwithstanding what has been said of 
transitional forms, the present career of biological inquiry has not 
yet arrived at the stage when limited divisions can be dispensed 
with, although lines of demarcation are broken apace. Provisionally, 
therefore, and for aught I can say to the contrary, the single genus 
and species Antilocapra americana may preside as the type of a 
