1870.] DR. J. MURIE ON SAIGA TARTARICA. 503 
tion as to the relative value of these is encountered. If horns are 
the test, the place assigned it by Gray and Turner cannot be objected 
to. If tried by Ogilby’s standard of the form of the upper lip, and 
distribution of cutaneous glands, or Sundevall’s proposed arrange- 
ment by hoof-structure, it may claim kindred with several widely 
different tribes. 
If teeth rule, or visceral structure prevail, it is of alien stock. If 
the skeleton, and specially the skull, decide its position, there is still 
something equivocal in its kinship. 
Thus, what I have said of the Prongbuck is applicable to the 
Saiga: both constitute forms of intermediate position, and defy the 
mandate of systematists who rigidly circumscribe the boundaries of 
groups. They tell in the strongest terms how interblended are 
the Ruminant tribes and subtribes. Every fresh fossil remnant, 
moreover, proves the truth of this dictum, and makes even the 
definition of genera unstable, generic limitation, in the present state 
of science, being a manifold convenience. 
The Saiga, to all intents and purposes, may be regarded as an 
Antilopine Sheep, not absolutely a Sheep, but an offshoot derivative 
of the genus Gazella rather than of Turner’s Ovine Antelopes, 
Nemorhedus. 
With this shifting of tribal alliance, Dr. Gray’s generic rank to it 
would remain, with the addition of such anatomical characters as I 
have enunciated. 
Genus Sarea, Gray. 
Horns roundish, lyrate, annulated, translucent. Nose very high 
and produced, walls soft, cavities capacious, and orifices patulous. 
An internal maxillary sinus or pouch. Crumen, inguinal, and inter- 
digital sacs present. Fleece ovine but short. Molars without sup- 
plemental lobes; the median incisors only moderately expanded. 
Nasals and preemaxille very short and far apart; a wide vacuity 
above. Maxillary produced as a shallow rostrum. Lachrymal 
higher than broad; no naso-lachrymal fissure ; a shallow impressed 
suborbital fossa; masseteric ridge rising before the orbit; basi- 
occipital flat, as wide as long, or slightly more expanded in front ; 
anterior basilar tubercles well developed, the posterior ones less so, 
but not small; auditory bulle moderate, partially inflated ; a mas- 
toidal or supraparamastoidal concavity ; spheno-pterygoids high, ap- 
proaching the vertical. Horizontal palate-plates reaching far back ; 
posterior nares wide and deep. Limb-bones of moderate length, with 
Ovine proportions and Antilopine symmetry. Male thyroid cartilage 
somewhat gibbous, but no internal laryngeal pouch; thyro-hyals 
long. Intestines Antilopine in their moderate length and propor- 
tions. A gall-bladder present. A well-developed prostate and 
Cowper’s glands ; penis terminating by a short whip-like extension of 
the corpus cavernosum. 
