ORDER RUMINANTIA. / 



goat, without a tail. It is entirely covered 

 with hairs, so thick and so brittle, that we may 

 almost call them spines. But that by which it 

 is more especially remarkable is the pouch, 

 situated in front of the prepuce of the male, 

 and which is filled with that odoriferous sub- 

 stance so well known in medicine and perfumery 

 under the name of musk. 



This species appears to be proper to that 

 rocky country from which descend the prin- 

 cipal part of the rivers of Asia, and which ex- 

 tends between Siberia, China, and Thibet. Its 

 life is nocturnal and solitary, and its timidity 

 extreme. It is at Thibet and Tunkin that it 

 gives the best musk ; in the north this substance 

 has scarcely any smell. 

 The other Musks have no musk-pouch. They all 

 live in the hot countries of the old continent* ; they are 

 the smallest and most elegant of all the ruminantia f 

 All the rest of the ruminants have, at least in the 

 male sex, two horns, that is to say, two prominences 

 of greater or less length of the frontal bones, which 

 is not found in any other family of animals. 



In some these prominences are covered with a 

 case of elastic substance, composed like agglutinated 

 hairs, which increase by depositions, and during all 

 the life of the animal ; the name of horn is given 



* The Moschus Americanus, established from Seba, is nothing- but 

 the young, or the female of one of the stags of Guiana. 



t Moschus Pygmosus, Buff. XII. xlii. Moschus Memina, Sehreb. 

 ccxlvii. Moschus Javanicus, Buff. Supp. VI, xxx. 



