336 NEMOEHEDUS. 



evidently very closely allied to the latter, so mucli so that A. M. -Edwards is inclined 

 to consider it as only a local race of that species. But on comparing five skulls of 

 the two sexes of N. bubalina as determined by Hodgson with A. Milne-Edwards' 

 figure of the skull of N. edwardsii, I observe that all of these five crania agree in 

 having less vertical depth through the preorbital area than N. edwardsii, which is 

 due to the downwardly arched character of the alveolar border of the latter, 

 especially at its middle, whereas in N. huhalina this border is nearly straight. The 

 edentulous portion of the maxilla and premaxilla appears also to be longer in 

 N. huhalina, but it is impossible to say whether the characters presented by the 

 typical skull of N. edwardsii are persistently present. 



Blyth has compared skulls of goat-antelopes from Sumatra, Arracan, and Mer- 

 gui, but could not detect any distinguishing characters, and he found that they 

 differed little from N. huhalina of the Himalaya, except in being considerably 

 smaller. 



The coat of this supposed example of N. edwardsii is much more profuse and 

 black than in any specimens of N. huhalina that have come under my observation, 

 but on pulling the hair aside they .are seen to pale towards their base, having a 

 reddish-brown tint, whilst the remainder of each hair is intensely black. There is 

 also a woolly under-pile which I cannot detect in the skin of H. huhalina, but which 

 A. M.-Edwards also noticed in his example of N. edwardsii. It may be that this 

 dense coat with its underlying pile is essentially seasonal and characteristic of 

 winter, but whether N. huhalina undergoes such periodical mutation of pelage 

 we do not know. Hodgson, however, remarks that in N. huhalina there is some 

 little variation independent of that caused by sex and age, and he states that in the 

 female the black of the upper parts is less full than in the male and sometimes 

 mixed with grey. 



M. I'Abbe David's^ antelope was from Tibet. The other nearly allied species, 

 N. stimatrensis, which is the type of the genus Ncemorliedus, is found ahke in 

 Sumatra and the Malayan peninsula; N. ruhida, Blyth, occurs in the hilly region 

 of Arracan ; N. swinhoei, Gray, in the mountainous region of Central Eormosa, and 

 N. crispa, Gray, in Japan. 



To the shoulder-bag or haversack of every Kakhyen, Shan, and Chinese 

 peasant of Western Yunnan a horn of the goat-antelope is generally an indispen- 

 sable adjunct. It is suspended from it, and is in constant requisition by the mule- 

 drivers as a kind of drill for making holes in their mule gear. 



' Jourii. d'Explor. dans I'Empire Chinois, par M. I'Abbe A. David, 1875, vol. ii, p. 332. 



