292 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



satisfactory notes, or by unknown hands. These objections 

 attach, in part, to the last-mentioned animal; and from the 

 circumstances under which we saw the former, sufficiently 

 explained in the original communication, some doubts will 

 remain even respecting that species. It is true they coin- 

 cide with Seba, and the figures in Hernandes and Recchi, 

 but still a more satisfactory testimony is desirable, and 

 they are entered here with a view to excite the inquiries of 

 future travellers who may be more fortunate than ourselves, 

 leaving it to the nomenclator to admit or reject the evi- 

 dence produced. Our view on this subject differs from the 

 arbitrary system which assumes upon its own authority the 

 right to believe or discredit the recitals of others, who had 

 intellect, eyes, and judgment, as well as ourselves ; and we 

 deem it more for the interest of science to admit, in their 

 proper places, and with the signs of uncertainty, such docu- 

 ments as are new, and not yet fully substantiated, than to 

 reject them altogether as unworthy of notice. Time has 

 proved Bruce, notwithstanding the incredulity of Zoologists, 

 to have been right in all the subjects that have been in the 

 way of verification ; and many other instances shew that 

 the natural sciences are more likely to gain than lose by 

 the practice. 



The Anoine Group. 



We have now to consider the last species which we refer 

 to the great genus Antilope, though there is little doubt 

 that when its history and characters shall be fully known, 

 an absolute separation will be the consequence. In the 

 present state of our information, it demands, at least pro- 

 visionally, a location in a separate group, which we de- 

 signate, we must confess, by a name offered more from in- 

 ference than from proof sufficiently clear. The characters by 

 which to separate it from all the foregoing, are — horns 

 placed on the edge of the frontal crest, on the same plane 



