12 W. T. Blanford— %).& the Scientific Names of [No. 1, 



Rhinoceros in which this is the case ; as in Bh. indicus, as well as the double- 

 horned species with which I am acquainted, the female carries a horn 

 or horns, though they are generally smaller than in the male. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE V. 

 Fig. 1. Side view of the skull with the terminal ossification (*) in situ. 

 „ 2. Section of the skull showing the posterior ossification (**) 

 ,, 3. Inner or under view of the conjoined nasal bones showing (a) the 

 anterior- termination of the upper fringe with the ossified nasal cartilages (b. c.) and 

 (d) the roughened articular surface for the terminal bone. 



„ 4. Front view of the tip of the nasals with the ter m inal bone in situ. 

 „ 5. Front view of the bone disconnected. 

 ,, 6. Upper or articular surface of ditto. 



V. — On the Scientific Names of the Sind " Ibex," the Markhor, and the 

 Indian Antelope.— By W. T. Blaitfoed, F. B. S., F. G. S. 



(Received 27th May, — Eead June 2nd, 1875.) 



In the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society for December last, p. 240, 

 Mr. Hume proposed the names of Copra Blythi for the Sind wild goat or 

 ibex, and Capra Jerdoni for the Suliman variety of the Markhor. The 

 former animal is only incidentally mentioned in Jerdon's Mammals of In- 

 dia, p. 293, and then it is called Capra Gaucasica* The two forms of Mar- 

 khor inhabiting Kashmir and Afghanistan are mentioned by Jerdon, but 

 very briefly. As the idea is prevalent in India that neither the Sind 

 goat nor the Suliman Markhor are known to naturalists, I think it may be 

 useful to shew that this view is erroneous, and that neither animal requires 

 a new scientific name. 



To take the Sind "ibex" first. This animal is, I think, clearly identi- 

 cal with the wild goat of Persia, Armenia and the Caucasus, and probably 

 of Crete. There is another wild caprine animal in the Caucasus, more near- 

 ly allied to the Alpine and Central Asian species of ibex, and this animal 

 is the true Capra Caucasica. The wild goat of Persia and Sind has long 

 been known throughout the civilized world as the source of the genuine 

 bezoaiyf so greatly famed in former times for its supposed virtue as an 

 antidote to poison. 



* It should be borne in mind that the Sind goat does not occur east of the river 

 Indus, which was adopted by Dr. Jerdon, in the Prospectus published at the commence- 

 ment of his " Birds of India," as the western boundary of the Indian fauna. 



t This word is Persian, or rather, a corruption of the Persian pdzahr, which again 

 is derived fxom fd-zahr, useful or profitable (against) poison. 



