1846.] Rough Notes on the Zoology of Candahar. 151 



it " Chikara" or " Shikara," a name which is elsewhere applied to the 

 Four-horned Antelope. The female has horns, but these are very short 

 and slender, and invariably crooked in growth ; they are blackish and 

 smooth, with slight indications of wrinkles at the base. The same spe- 

 cies likewise occurs in Cutchee, but does not pass the mountains into 

 Afghanistan. 



No. 43. Gazella Christii, Gray. — This species approaches very nearly 

 to the last named, and occurs in Cutchee also, but not in Afghanistan. 

 A fine specimen was brought to me at Dadur, and the skull was carefully 

 preserved and brought to this country with my other collections ; but 

 since my arrival at Mussoorie it has most unaccountably disappeared. 44 



No. 44. Gazella subgutturosa. — The Ahu. (N. B. The word "ahu," 

 though applied to this species by the Afghans, is used only as a generic 

 term ; the specific name I cannot now remember, and my note is mislaid.) 



Although I have referred the Afghan Gazelle to G. subgutturosa, still 

 I do so with diffidence, on account of the remarkable difference between 

 the horns of my specimens and the figure of a skull given in the English 

 ■ Regne animal.' In that work the horns bend outwards at the tip, and 

 it is said in the text that such is their direction in the Persian Antilope 

 subgutturosa. I am strongly inclined to think, that the horns on the skull 

 figured in the ' Regne animal' have been transposed, namely, the right 

 horn on the left core, for if they were again changed they would exactly 

 represent the horns of the Afghan species. In my largest specimen the 

 horns are fourteen inches long measured over the curve ; they have 

 twenty annulations, and are seven inches and a quarter apart at the tips, 

 which turn inwards and almost form a hook ; indeed, with the exception 

 of the above difference in the direction of the horns, the two animals 

 precisely correspond. 45 The Ahu of the Afghans is found from Quettah 

 to Candahar and Girishk, and it probably extends thence via Herat into 

 Persia ; they are found in small flocks of six or seven, and roam over 

 the wide and sterile plains of Afghanistan, occasionally committing great 

 havoc in the grain- fields. 



I do not know whether it extends upwards to Cabool, though such is 

 probably the case, as 1 heard of its occurrence near Ghuznee. In the 



44. For some notice of this species, vide XI, 452. — Cur. As. Soc. 



45. The horns are those of a typical Gazella, rather stout, and abruptly hooked in 

 at the tip.— Cur. As, Soc. 



X 



