156 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



observable in the original parent species, and constituting 

 two new lines of a spurious genealogy. But although it 

 is asserted and believed that the Goat and Sheep produce 

 an intermediate prolific race, comparative anatomy and 

 continued observation have gradually reduced these specu- 

 lations to very restricted limits. Where the number of 

 species is very considerable, and the characters by which 

 genera and racemi can be divided, are so insignificant and 

 evanescent as the flexures of the horns, inguinal pores, 

 &c, varying and interchanging in a manner that might al- 

 most appear capricious, the difficulties of a systematic 

 arrangement in a natural order are great, and appear sur- 

 mountable only by degrees, as our knowledge extends over 

 additional species, and we clear away the confusion pro- 

 duced chiefly by an injudicious application of all the known 

 names and partial indications of travellers, to the very few 

 species first described by Buffon, Pennant, and Pallas. 



Linnaeus, who was acquainted with few animals now 

 usually classed with Antilope, seems to have been led by 

 the observation of Pliny, that " goats assume many forms, 

 &c, including Oryges, Damse, Pygargse, Stresicerotes, and 

 many others;" and, therefore, instituted but one genus, 

 Capra, for the whole, excepting the Sheep, which he kept 

 separate, without a distinctive character more prominent 

 than many of those which he threw together in the Goats. 

 Buffon, notwithstanding his generalizing principles which 

 converted species into mere varieties, opposed artificial, and 

 even natural classification to the extent of regarding, on 

 some occasions, the absolute integrity alone of specific 

 isolation ; and then seeing no greater degree of affinity be- 

 tween the small and the larger species, than he found be- 

 tween the Ox and the Sheep. But with the increasing 

 number of species, Pallas first perceived the propriety of 

 separating certain animals from the Goats, and instituting 

 a new genus, founded principally upon the round, annu- 



