188 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



exact representation of the straight horns in the Prayer 

 Book of the Duke of Bedford before-mentioned, as evidence 

 to the fact. This prayer-book was probably illuminated 

 on his marriage with Anne, Princess of Burgundy, and in 

 no case can be later than the period of his death in the 

 year 1435. 



The White Oryx. (A. Leucoryx.) Mr. Pennant first 

 published a description of this species, derived from a 

 figure of the animal, drawn from life, in the year 1722, by 

 order of Sir John Lock, at that time agent of the Bengal 

 East India Company at Ispahan : several were then kept 

 by the Shah, Sultan Hausein, in his park of Cassar. The 

 traveller, Vincent Marie, noticed another at Muscat, in 

 Arabia, and the species appears to be not uncommon in 

 the province, and even the Island of Bahrein, and along 

 the coasts of the Persian Gulf, Dr. Flemming having pos- 

 sessed one brought from Lesha, the capital of Bahrein. 

 It appears to exist also to the eastward, along the western 

 deserts of the Indus to Candahar, and the Moultan. It is 

 the true oryx of Oppian : the Antholops of Eustathius, 

 sporting on the banks of the Euphrates, seems to be no 

 other ; nor can the other names of the middle ages already 

 noticed, nor the Great Goat mentioned in some MS. copies 

 of the Shah Named, be considered as deriving their ori- 

 ginal type from any other species. 



The White Oryx is in size about three feet seven inches 

 at the shoulder, with the head rather thick and square, the 

 neck short, the body bulky, and the legs slender. The 

 horns, as in the former, are placed close together, diverg- 

 ing straight along the prolongation of the face, and the 

 points bending back into a curve; they are obliquely an- 

 nulated about two-thirds from their base, the tips smooth ; 

 they are round, black, and polished, measuring near three 

 feet in length. From the base of the horns, the forehead 

 is covered with a patch of black hair, uniting by a nar- 



