850 MH. R. I. PococK o\ THE [June 14, 



behiml the lionis and well iu iulvance of the base of the eai'S. 

 By no possibility can they be (lesc-iil)eil with acciuac}' as behind 

 the ears. I think Hamilton Smith must have been the first to 

 start this error iu 1827. In Griffith's 'Animal Kingdom,' iv. 

 p. 22, he stated that there was a gland beliind the ear ; but on 

 p. 281 of this volume he described the same gland appaiently as 

 occurring behind the horns. In 183G Owen repeated the statement 

 that tliey are post-auditory, thus confirming my suspicion that he 

 borrowed many of the facts for his paper from Hamilton Smith. 

 In 1855 the glands were quite correctly figured and described by 

 Von Hessling as behind the horns (Zeitsch. f . w. Zool. vi. pp. 265- 

 271 , 1)1. viii.) ; but in the illustration accompanying this memoir the 

 ears appeal- to have been added as an afterthought, for they are 

 drawn as projecting from the side of the head-skiu much too far 

 forwards, the anterior edge of their bases being in a line with the 

 posterior base of the horns, .so that part of the gland, at all events, 

 is behind the ears. The tiguie, however, is quite wrong in that 

 particular. As is well known, the horns of a Chamois rise verti- 

 cally nearly over the eyes and the ears are set far behind both. To 

 Owen's mistake and Yon Hessling's inaccurate figure must probably 

 be attributed the statement made by Flower and Lydekker (' Mam- 

 malia,' p. 12, 1891), by Max Weber (Die Siiug. p. 675, 1904), and 

 by Lydekker (' Field,' 1909, p. 1100) that the glands in question 

 are post-auditory, the Latter even speaking of them as " occipital." 

 Yet, curiously enough. Flower knew at one time that they were 

 behind the horns and in front of the ears, ]:)ecause there is a pre- 

 paration in the INTuseum of the College of Surgeons showing their 

 exact position ; and in the catalogue there is an entry in his hand- 

 writing, giving an accuiate description of the preparation with a 

 reference to von Hessling's paper*. This specimen was received 

 from the Zoological Society in 1877, many years before the 

 repetition of Owen's mistake by Flower in his classical work on 

 the Mammalia. 



A further point of interest connected with this specimen is that 

 it was a female. The glands appeal' as a pair of subcrescentic 

 slits, one behind each horn and aliout half an inch away from 

 it. This establishes the conclusion that the female possesses 

 the glands as well as the male, although they do not appear to 

 become enlarged at the breeding-season as in the latter. Their 

 appearance in the l)ucks was recently described by Mr. A. Buxton 

 ('Field,' 1909, p. 1056), who found them in the autumn of the 

 year in various stages of growth, and said that they gave out a 

 strong goaty smell. 



In the male Tyrolean Chamois now living iu the Gardens the 

 glands began to swell in the latter half of September when the 

 coat liegan to darken, were at their maximum through November 

 and tin; fir.st half of December, then gradually dwindled away, and 

 by the end of the first week of J;uiu;n-v were represented by a flat 



* I nin iiidclitcil to Mr. II. H. Hmnc, F.Z.S., for tliis iiiforination. 



