1834.] Note on the Chiru Antelope. 135 



C. Hodgsonii. Length of the male,from snout to rump, four feet eight 

 inches : height, before, two feet eight inches; behind, two feet lOinches: 

 horns, with a sinus in the core, from 22 to 27 inches long, slender, black, 

 sub-erect, sublyrate, inserted between the orbits, approximated at bases, 

 and strongly compressed; towards the points round and turned forwards, 

 12 to 20 annuli, which are round-edged, independent, very prominently 

 displayed to the front, striated to the sides and back ; large inguinal 

 purses, as in Dorcas ; no suborbital sinus ; nose perfectly clad, broad, 

 bristly ; aperture of the nostrils wide, and furnished on the outer side 

 with an accessary enlargement or intermaxillary pouch : ears, short, 

 pointed, substriated: tail, short and full : hoofs, low and compressed for- 

 wards, spread and padded behind ; fur very thick and porrect, of two 

 sorts, hairy and woolly : the hair, quill-like and brittle ; the wool spare, 

 applied to the skin, and very fine ; no bands on the flanks, nor brushes 

 on the knees ; no congenital callosities on knees or sternum ; rarely arti- 

 ficial ones on the former : size medial, with very compact structure, full 

 of grace and vigour ; the limbs cast in the finest mould : colour, above, 

 bright rufous ; below, white : the face and fronts of the limbs, entirely 

 brown-black. The female, smaller, hornless ; inguinal purses less than 

 in the male ; two teats ; no marks on the face or limbs. In both sexes the 

 palate is colourless, but the naked skin of the lips and nostrils, jet black. 

 Major H. Smith having provisionally ranged our animal with the 

 Oryges, with a conjecture that it might be found to belong to the 

 Reduncine group, it is proper to add that the Chiru cannot, with any 

 propriety, be classed under either of those racemi, as designated by 

 himself, and that this species belongs unquestionably to his Antelopine 

 or to his Gazelline subgenus. Hornless females would give it to the 

 former. But lyrate horns, no suborbital sinus, and ovine nose, affine 

 it rather to the latter, under which, accordingly, I have disposed it. 



The Chiru, however, with his hollow-cored horns, his intermaxillary 

 pouches, and his bluff bristly nose, united to a figure and manners re- 

 sembling exactly those of the beauteous Gazelles and Antelopes proper, 

 is, in many essential respects, a conspicuous novelty, and, but that I 

 apprehend the prevailing disposition of the day is to cany classification 

 beyond the limits of accurate knowledge, I would have placed the Chi- 

 ru in a new subgenus created for his reception, and denominated Pan- 

 tholops. The Byzantine writers so called the supposed unicorn, and 

 •we all know how resolutely the Tibetans insisted for years that such 

 was their Chiru. 



Should any one object to my synoptical character, that it contains 

 some distinctive points of a generic or even larger quality, I have only 

 to observe that until our classification be amended, the thing cannot be 

 helped, without omitting essentials. For example, the genus Antelope 



