ORDER RUMINANTIA. 159 



were placed in juxtaposition. It may be presumed that 

 the defective state of our information induced the Baron to 

 confine his view to such species as he had the means of 

 comparing osteologically, and observing the want of im- 

 portance in almost all the characters which can be as- 

 signed, to rest contented with the artifical arrangement 

 just noticed, nearly such as Pennant and Shaw had left it. 

 In adopting the artificial arrangement, that great zoologist, 

 so far from objecting to a natural classification, points out 

 himself the necessity of alterations, and among others 

 that of removing the Gnoo. 



In this state we found the leading genera of the Cavi- 

 cornia, and in particular Antilope, when our own collec- 

 tion of notes and drawings relative to this genus had been 

 gradually accumulating for twenty years, the fruit of per- 

 sonal researches on the west-coast of Africa, the wilds of 

 both Americas, and the examination of forty-two public 

 museums, and many private collections in both continents, 

 until we were enabled to compare our sketches from living 

 and stuffed specimens, amounting to one hundred and 

 thirty-five representations of animals, and above one hun- 

 dred of fragments, skulls, horns, skeletons, feet, &c. In 

 this enumeration all those are excluded who, upon com- 

 parison, were not different in species, sex, age, or variety 

 of colour, or other circumstances. With this mass of 

 materials, superior, we believe, to what can well be in the 

 possession of other Zoologists, we find it, nevertheless, far 

 too scanty in documents to come at a disposition sufficiently 

 satisfactory for the expectations of science : but enough is 

 amassed to prove that the indications of travellers have 

 commonly more precision and truth than has been ad- 

 mitted ; and that the imputations of negligence and igno- 

 rance, which are so convenient to writers of nomenclatures 

 and systems, generally take their origin from a disposition 

 to force separate subjects, species, and names, into one 



