196 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



the hair pale rufous. It resembles a new-born Guernsey- 

 calf, and might, indeed, be the young of the Nubian Oryx. 



The Chiru. (A. Kemasl) The Kemas of iElian is only 

 characterized by horns with the point turned forwards, a 

 hide very thickly set with hair, and a white tail. Natural- 

 ists, viewing the direction of the points of the horns as a 

 decisive criterion of groups, have mostly placed this species 

 among the Reduncse, and considered it an African species, 

 without adverting that the quantity of hair and the colour 

 of the tail removed it from any known animal of this 

 genus, belonging to that quarter of the globe, or even from 

 those of Asia hitherto described. No ruminant of a low 

 latitude, or residing beneath high mountains, is furnished 

 with a superabundant coat of hair ; and thus we are led to 

 look for the Kemas of iElian among those remote from the 

 tropics, or whose habitat is confined to elevated regions, 

 and to consider it as still undescribed in the catalogues of 

 nomenclators. Assuming the foregoing data, a late dis- 

 covery in the mountains of Central Asia shews us an an- 

 telope in which the indications of iElian are obvious ; we 

 mean the Chiru or Unicorn of the Bhotes. From the ac- 

 counts which we have received, and the inspection of the 

 horns by a friend, we are enabled to present a notice of 

 this animal sufficiently distinct to establish it as a species, 

 the probable Kemas of iElian, and to indicate its presumed 

 affinity with the Orygine group, at least until subsequent 

 observation shall have confirmed or invalidated the opinion. 



The materials from which the notice is collected, consist 

 in the description of the skin of a male to which the horns 

 were attached, but mutilated and distorted from the want 

 of skill or of means in the natives who procured it, and 

 also in several horns sent from Katmandoo to Calcutta. 

 From these it appears, that the total length of the animal 

 approaches to six feet, and the height at the shoulders is 

 more than three feet. The horns are from twenty-one to 



