THE SERO WS, GORALS AND TAKINS OF BRITISH INDIA. 299 



that the limbs of the Sumatran animal are black to the fetlocks, 

 he would have seen that Burmese specimens could not carry the 

 name sumatrensis in a restricted sense. 



There is no reason to think that Dr. Blanford included more 

 than one race of Serow under the name hubalinus. But, setting- 

 aside the true sumatrensis which he evidently did not know, the 

 synonymy he quoted under that specific named embraced two kinds 

 of Burmese Serows, namely, the red form named ruJndushj Blyth, 

 and a blackish form with red legs named milne-edivardsii by 

 David. If he had known the typical sumatrensis and had excluded 

 it as doubtless he would have done, from the British Indian 

 fauna, he would have been compelled to adopt the title ruhidus for 

 the Burmese Serows. He was quite evidently, however, full of 

 doubt as to the true status of the Serows he discussed, for he 

 wrote: "I am far from satisfied that this goat-antelope (sumatrensis 

 so-called) and huhalimis are really distinct, or, if they are, whether 

 the Arakan ruhidus belongs to this form. I follow Blyth in uniting 

 ruhidus and sumatrensis." 



The doubts expressed by Blanford on this head were taken up 

 by Mr. Lydekker nine years afterwards ' and practically express- 

 ed by the relegation of the British Indian forms to one species 

 for which the name sumatrensis was adopted. A further modifi- 

 cation of Blanford's classification was the recognition of ruhidus as 

 ii race, so that three races of sumatrensis were admitted in British 

 India, namely, hubalinus and sumoirensis, sensu stricfo, and ruhidus. 

 The only criticism of this classification that need be offered concerns 

 the acceptance and propagation of Blanford's mistake regarding 

 the colours of the legs in the typical SMWxirensis . This was repeat- 

 ed in the second edition of Great and Small Game of India, etc., 

 issued in 1907. 



Dr. Blanford also put Mr. A. L. Butler quite off the scent as to 

 the true aflfinities of the Serow from the Larut Hills, Perak, which 

 he described as Nemorhedus sivettenhami, regarding it as a new and 

 quite distinct species mainly on account of its having the legs 

 below the knees and hocks black. If Mr. Butler had known the 

 characters of the Sumatran Serow, he would have seen at once that 

 his Malaccan animal was closely allied to it (Proc. Zool. Soc.^ 1900, 

 p. 675), the two differing, not in the colour of the legs, but in the 

 colouring of the mane. 



The above given summary will show the accepted views of the 

 characters and names of the Serows of British India and the Straits 

 Settlements down to 1907. In that year the necessity for iden- 

 tifying some examples that had been acquired by the Zoological 

 Society of London forced me to take up the question of these 



1 Great and Small Game of India, pp. 128—135, 1900. 

 11 



