ORDER RUMINANTIA. 61 



unknown to the ancients, and although the drug which this 

 animal bears, was employed from time immemorial in 

 central Asia, and subsequently in Europe, no notice of the 

 species to which it belongs existed, till Abuzeid Serassi, 

 an Arabian author, described it as a deer with horns. Se- 

 rapion, who flourished in the eighth century, according to 

 Shaw, was the first who introduced a knowledge of the 

 animal into western Europe. Avicenna, Gesner, Aldro- 

 vandus, Kircher and Boym followed ; but Grew gave the 

 first satisfactory description. At length Buffon collected 

 the scattered notices of authors, and having obtained a liv- 

 ing specimen, his and Daubenton's descriptions, united 

 with Pallas and Gmelin's, determined its locality in the ge- 

 neral system of organized beings. 



The animal is nearly the size of a roebuck, with a head 

 similarly shaped, excepting that the upper lips are broader, 

 owing to the two canines which hang out on each side of 

 the mouth, and that behind, at the angle of the gape, are 

 two tufts of hair. The texture of the hair is coarse, nearly 

 all white at the base, but ending in brown, dun or black 

 tips, which produces a different shade of colour, according 

 as the creature is seen in front or flank. The lips, chin, 

 breast, belly, and inside of the limbs, are white; the iris 

 rusty brown; the hoofs long and pointed ; and the succen- 

 torial very long, serving the animal to grasp the edges of 

 rocks, in climbing or descending in the same manner as the 

 Chamois; the hindquarters are more elevated than the an- 

 terior : hence their movements are rather in a canter than 

 a trot, and their habitat requires vigorous leaping, in mov- 

 ing from the barren or snowy regions to the pine zones of 

 the Alpine tracts of central Asia, where they reside ; their 

 native region extending from China and Tartary, to the 

 mountains above the sources of the Indus, and north, to 

 near Lake Baical. The province most renowned for the 

 superior quality of the musk of its animals, is Thibet. 



