THE INDIAN ANTELOPE. 121 
Coptic Pantholops, which, accordmg to that writer, 
signifies the Unicorn. Its adoption in the languages 
of Europe is traced no farther back than the fourth 
century of the Christian era, when it was employed by 
Eustathius in his Hexameron to designate an imaginary 
animal, living on the banks of the Euphrates, sawing 
down trees with its horns, and entangling itself by the 
same jagged protuberances among the bushes, so as to 
become an easy prey to the hunters. This account of 
its habits was so obviously apocryphal as to induce 
Linneus, in the first edition of his System, to place the 
Antelope among the fabulous and paradoxical beasts. 
Even in the last edition of his great work, published in 
1766, he refused admission to the name ; and persisted 
in retaining all the animals now universally distin- 
guished as Antelopes in the same genus with the Goats. 
Only five species of the group are there characterized ; 
but Pallas, in the succeeding year, increased the num- 
ber to sixteen, and ten years afterwards added six more, 
making in all twenty-two. In his excellent Memoirs 
upon this subject the species are discriminated with 
judgment and precision; the synonymy is established 
by careful comparison; and detailed descriptions are 
added both of the external and internal structure of 
those which had fallen under his personal observation. 
They form the basis on which all subsequent zoologists 
have worked; and although the number of the species 
has since been more than doubled may still be regarded 
as models in their kind. The most active and success- 
ful of the later investigators of this difficult group have 
been M. de Blainville, Major Hamilton Smith, and 
Professor Lichtenstein. The latter gentleman has an- 
nounced his intention of again revising the entire genus ; 
and M. Temminck has also been for some time engaged 
in the preparation of a similar monograph ; so that we 
