198 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



Arabian and Bysantine writers to consider it as the musk- 

 bearing animal ; and this error was the more likely to occur, 

 as they might have known the Mongolian Dzeren {A. Gut- 

 turosa), who is actually provided with a pouch. Of all the 

 antilopine animals, the Chiru is the one which corresponds 

 best with iElian's Kemas* ; and if we consider that although 

 the species is described at present as found in the Bootan, 

 the mountain ruminants are more likely than those of the 

 plain to spread along the ramifications of central ridges as 

 far as they can find a congenial climate. There is no rea- 

 son to deny its former and probably present existence, even 

 in the Caucasian range, and to have come within the in- 

 quiries ofiElian, during the military expeditions of his 

 time (that is of Alexander Severus) into the mountains of 

 Armenia f. The species might still have remained un- 

 noticed in the elevated wildernesses of Central Asia, if the 

 people of the country had not asserted it to be the Unicorn, 

 and since the specimen is produced, insisted that it is often 

 found with only one horn. No doubt all the Oryges are 

 liable to break one of their horns, when we consider their 

 length, small diameter, and the vigour and courageous 

 disposition of the animals ; and we may infer that the re- 

 ports of Monocerotes so ancient, so universal, and so per- 

 manent, depend solely upon these accidents ; and that the 



* Although the word Kemas, Ke^a?, appears a genuine Greek 

 term for a young ruminant, the derivation seems rather far-fetched, 

 and it is, possibly, in common with other Greek terms, derived 

 from the more ancient Oriental root Kem, which, with its mutations, 

 signifying summit, crest, &c, extends over the Old World. There 

 is a curious connexion between the ancient names of the great 

 ranges of mountains and of ruminants. Thus Taurus, and Taurus 

 a bull ; Himalaya, Hemala a ram, the Teutonic Hamel ; Imaus, and 

 Haemus and Kemas ; Caucasus, and Ghau-cas, or Oxridge ; 

 Coomri, and Komri, a doubtful Hybrid of Central Africa, &c. 



t iElian's description of its swimming and residence in woods is 

 more appropriate to Asiatic than African locality. 



