490 On the Wild Goat [Sept?. 



backwards over the jaws from the gape; horns, hoofs, and muzzle, 

 black ; iris, dark hazel ; eye, mean. 



Female as large as male, and like him in all essential respects. The 

 young, paler, and mixed with gray. 



Inhabit the precipitous and wooded mountains of the central region 

 of Nipal, which they rush up and down with fearful rapidity, though 

 they do not spring or leap well, nor are speedy. 



The Thar species are denominated Sarau, in the western parts of these 

 mountains, where it is as common as in Nipal. The Cambing Ootan 

 is its analogue in the Indian Islands ; but the species is not found, I 

 believe, in any other mountainous range of the continent of India. 



III. — On the Wild Goat and Wild Sheep of the Himalaya, with Remarks 

 on the genera Capra and Ovis. By B. H. Hodgson, Esq. Resident 

 in Nipal. 



In the way of classification, there are few objects, I believe, more 

 important than the establishment of some distinctive marks to sepa- 

 rate Antilope, Capra and Ovis. The best naturalists of the present 

 day appear to think that M. Geoffroy's diagnosis of the former genus, 

 viz. cores of the horns solid, may be relied on. But small as is the 

 number of Antelopes accessible to me, I have proved with the saw, 

 that in respect to at least four species, (viz. Chirti, Thar, Goral, and Du- 

 vaucellii,) the fact is not so, all these four having sinuses in the cores of 

 their horns, connected with the frontal sinuses : and, if it be objected, 

 that of three of these the character is confessedly osculant towards 

 Capra, that cannot be urged against the fourth, which is a Gazella of 

 H. Smith's group. 



It is certain, therefore, that solid horns constitute not an invariable 

 character of the genus Antilope ; and it is highly probable, that this 

 character is not of such general prevalence as to warrant the distinction 

 founded upon it. 



The truth seems to be this, that in Antilope, the bony nuts of the 

 horns are of a compact structure, possessing at their bases sinuses of 

 only limited extent, and nearly free from cellular partitions ; whereas 

 in Capra, and yet more in Ovis, the cores are porous and uncompact, 

 and furnished at their bases with large sinuses, crowded with cells*. 



On the present occasion, I do not propose to make any further men- 

 tion of the genus Antilope, but to confine myself to some remarks 



* The form of the scull a long vertical line, forms a much better diagnosis than 

 the cores of horns. 



