ORDER RUMINANTIA. 343 



and Tessier ; and of British writers from Messrs. Pennant, 

 Bewick, Bingley, Culley, Arthur Young, Dickson, Parkin- 

 son, Sir John Sinclair, Macdonald, Lord Somerville, and 

 Dr. Parry ; names who have deserved well alike of their 

 country, and of mankind. 



The Genus Damalis. 



We have attempted to arrange the foregoing genera by a 

 successive transition of their most prominent characters, 

 from the Deer tribe to the Antelope, and from these into 

 Capra and Ovis ; but this arrangement allowed no natural 

 location for those species of a large size, hitherto classed 

 with Antilope, whose more equivocal characteristics approxi- 

 mate them to the Bovine nearly as much as to the Caprine 

 nature ; hence it appears necessary to interpose a new 

 genus, the characters of which should embrace the evanes- 

 cent distinctions of Antilope, Capra, and Ovis, together with 

 the incipient characters which shew the approximation 

 to Bos. 



The native names of the animals thus generically se- 

 parated, import that they are considered distinct from 

 the Antelope in their own countries; and although no 

 great stress should usually be laid upon local names, yet 

 it would be treating the knowledge and experience of the 

 resident nations with an indiscriminating indifference, if, 

 upon inquiry, it should be found that from the earliest an- 

 tiquity to the present time, every people who have intimate 

 knowledge of the animals under consideration, should agree 

 in bestowing one generical designation upon them, and yet 

 that such designation should be rejected by systematic 

 writers for one less analogous. Such, however, is the case 

 with the groups of animals before us, which, whether they 

 be Indian or African, have, in their local names, either 

 something that shews their separation from Antilope, or, 

 what is more common, a generic indication, which proves 



