1908.] SEROWS AND GORALS. 175 



Gcqyricornis Pocock, Ann. Mag. ISTat. Hist. (8) i. pp. 183-188, 

 1908. 



The principal external differences between the vai-ious kinds 

 of Serows that have been described are differences of colour of a 

 very simple kind. They consist, for the most part, in the 

 substitution of the three tints, black, red, and white, on definite 

 areas of the body and limbs — that is to say, a part which in one 

 form is black may be red in a second and white or grey in a third. 

 For example, the legs below the knees and hocks are white in 

 C. sumatraensis rodoni, red in C. s. mihie-edioardsi, and black in 

 C s. swettenhami. The mane is hoary white in C. s. stmiatraensis 

 and G. s. argyrochcetes^ red or mostly red in G. s. rubidus, black 

 in G. s. jamrachi, a mixture of black and white in G. s. rohin- 

 soni, and of black, white, and I'ed in G. s. sivettenhaml. Similarly 

 the underside is almost wholly white in G. s. rodoni^ and reddish 

 black in G. s. jamrachi. Finally, the prevailing colour of the 

 body in G. s. jamrachi is black, while in G. s. rubidus it is red. 

 These three colours, black, i-ed, and white, or a mixture of any 

 two of them, or of the three combined, are the commonest 

 variations to occur in domestic mammals. Horses, for example, 

 may be black, red (bay), or white, or black and white (piebald), or 

 bay and white (skewbald), when the colours are arranged in patches, 

 or roan when the coat consists of an intimate mixture of black 

 and white or bay and white hairs. The passage from one of these 

 three tints to the others is a common and, be the cause what it 

 may, an apparently simple phenomenon. It is for this reason 

 that I regard the differences between the various kinds of Serows 

 as of subspecific and not of specific importance, in spite of the 

 fact that tliei-e is in most cases no actual proof of the existence of 

 intermediates between the different forms that have been named *. 

 For the present, at all events, therefore I agree with Mr. Lydekker 

 in consideiing all the many desci'ibed forms as belonging to a 

 single species, which must take the name of the i-ace that was 

 first made known, namely the one from Sumatra which Bechstein 

 described as Antilope stomatraensisf. 



* It is the custom with some systematic zoologists to consider an insular form 

 ipso facto as a species whatever grade of difference it presents from other insular 

 forms or from the form from the adjacent mainland, on the grounds that the 

 discontinuity in geographical distribution involves the non-existence of actual 

 intermediate types. Were I to follow this course with respect to the Serows, I 

 should he compelled to separate the Sumatran animal specifically from those from 

 the mainland of Malacca, while uniting the latter specifically with those from 

 Burma, China, and the Himalayas. Such a course, however, would, in my opinion, 

 be a gross contravention of common sense, because it would give a higher systematic 

 value to the comparatively trivial differences between the Svimatran and Southern 

 Malayan animals than to the comparatively important differences between the 

 Southern Malayan and Himalayan animals. In this and analogous cases it is surely 

 a mistake to make geographical isolation the criterion of the value of a character. 

 The character should be judged on its own merits and its importance determined by 

 a study of the extent of the variation to which the particular species or allied species 

 are liable. 



t Pocock, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (8) i. p. 187, 1908. For the discovery of this 

 early name for the species I am indebted to Mr. C. D. Sherborn's invaluable ' Index 

 Auimalium.' 



Proc. ZooL. See— 1908. No. XII. 12 



