ORDER RUMINANTIA. 185 



five or six together. Some species prefer mountains and 

 elevated woody countries ; others the plain and sandy de- 

 serts, where they seem to subsist with very little water. 

 Strong, active, and vigilant, they repel the Hyasna and the 

 Jackal ; they can even intimidate the Lion. If assailed 

 or driven to defend themselves, they raise the tail, couch 

 their ears, toss the head with a menacing look, and with a 

 tremulous and shrill warning snort, drop their head low 

 between the fore-legs, inverting the horns to near the 

 ground, and dart with incredible velocity upon their 

 enemy. Oppian, the modern Arabs of the desert, and the 

 Hottentots, agree in describing the danger of approaching 

 them before they are totally disabled. We have seen 

 spears manufactured by the natives of South Africa, armed 

 with the horns of the Oryx, which proves Strabo's account 

 to be perfectly correct 



In the nomenclature and synonyma of the group, Buffon, 

 Pallas, and other systematic writers, have caused great con- 

 fusion. Kaampfer's Pasan or Paseng, the Capra JEgagrzis, 

 has been confounded with them. Prosper Alpin's figure of 

 the horn of an oryx has been refused an Egyptian origin, 

 and Strepsiceros of Pliny, sometimes referred to the Cretan 

 Sheep, applied to an animal which the ancients have not 

 known, although we shall shew this species under the 

 name of Addax to belong to the group now under con- 

 sideration, and to have been justly pointed out by Caius in 

 Gesner. Mr. Pennant, impelled by the same desire of as- 

 cribing all the references of authors to the species known 

 in his time, most unaccountably considers the Caffrarian 

 or Cape Oryx as the Egyptian Antelope. To conclude: so 

 late as the year 1816, we find the Diet, des Sciences 

 Naturelles evincing the obscurity which then still enveloped 

 the present group. It is, perhaps, worth observing, that 

 the Arabs and other natives of the climates which these 

 animals inhabit, never consider them as Antelopes, but as 



Vol, IV. O 



