366 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



group, but as yet undescribed, which resides in some of the 

 great islands of the Indian Archipelago, and our sub-genus 

 Anoa, may ultimately unite with or osculate with Portax. 



The Genus Catoblepas. 



Although the Gnu or Gnoo, here considered as the type 

 of the genus, was hitherto classed with Antilope ; it appears 

 that Zoologists felt the necessity of moving it into one 

 more nearly allied to Bos. Baron Cuvier, and M. F. 

 Cuvier both admitted the propriety, and the latter gentle- 

 man in his description of a female Gnoo, not only esta- 

 blishes this necessity, but confirms the remarks which we 

 made on the genus Damalis, by observing that when the 

 multitude agree in assigning one class of affinities more 

 than another from external characters, a generical type will 

 be usually discovered more analogous to natural classifica- 

 tion, than the arbitrary systems of nomenclators indicate. 

 Zoology displays in almost all the genera, connecting links 

 from one to the other, and in proportion as we advance in 

 the discovery of additional species, the original characters 

 of genera diminish in precision, till at length recourse 

 must be had to a single character, or to an aggregate of 

 several minor distinctions. In the present instance, how- 

 ever, these distinctions are much more decisive than those 

 which separate Antilope, Capra and Ovis, and the genus 

 which is here proposed, is not confined to one species, but 

 to two, three, and perhaps four. With regard to the name 

 here offered, we adopt it as a generic designation in defer- 

 ence to the high authority of the great Zoologist just named, 

 and the direct testimony of iElian *, who represents " the 

 Catoblepas as an animal of Africa ; the native country of 

 an immense variety of creatures, resembling a bull, but 

 with a more fierce and terrible aspect ; its eyes red with 

 blood, resembling those of an ox, surmounted by large and 



* Lib. vii. c. 5, iEliani, &c. 



