1846.] Description of a new species of Tibetan Antelope. 335 



materials. Having said thus much in apology for bringing forward a 

 new genus, I should add in explanation of my lengthy specific character, 

 that a necessary regard to precision must render a dispensation with the 

 canons of Linneus indispensable, so long as innumerable, vague, and 

 shadowy species shall continue to be the plague of Zoological science. 

 The exceedingly graceful little animal, which is the subject of our pre- 

 sent description, is called by the Tibetans Ragoa, or Goa simply, and they 

 allege that it is found generally throughout the plains of middle and 

 eastern Tibet. But those plains, it must be remembered, are, for the 

 most part, broken by deep ravines or low bare hills, and it is in such 

 situations more especially, that the Goa dwells, either solitarily or 

 in pairs, or at most small families, never in large flocks. The 

 species is said to breed but once a year, and to produce ordinarily 

 but one young- one at a birth, rarely two ; and it is added, that it browses 

 rather than grazes, preferring aromatic shrubs and shoots to grass, 

 of which latter, indeed, its habitat is nearly void. I have not heard 

 that the Goa is ever tamed, but it is killed for the sake of its flesh, 

 which is esteemed excellent, and is free from all caprine odour, even 

 in the mature males. In size, proportions, and superficial aspect, our 

 animal bears considerable resemblance to Antelope africana and to 

 bennettii; but not to gutturosa, with which last named species Mr. 

 Blyth supposed it to be identical, upon inspection of a female transmitted 

 last year by Dr. Campbell to the Asiatic Society. But the following 

 description and drawings will serve clearly to distinguish it from all 

 those species. The G6a is in size equal to bennettii, and is remarkable 

 for the same exquisite grace and delicacy of form. The head is short, 

 compressed, deep towards the horns, and thence much attenuated to the 

 nose, which is neither bluff nor bristly, as in the Dseren and Chiru, but 

 smooth and fine. The nostrils are narrow, nor do they, or the lips, show 

 the least trace of a nude moist muzzle : the chaffron is straight ; the 

 eye very large, and (I am told), dark ; the ears long, narrow, pointed, and 

 striated. The horns, which rise between the orbits and are of medial 

 size, larger considerably than in africana or bennettii, proceed upwards 

 and backwards with a bold ibex- like curve, the last inch and a half only 

 being somewhat recurved, and the divergency moderate and gradual, in- 

 creasing almost uniformly from a basal interval of half an inch to a ter- 

 minal one of four and a quarter inches. In young specimens the tips of 

 the horns incline inwards as well as forwards, and as the backward 

 arcuation of the horns is in them much less than in maturity, the horns of 

 the young thus come to possess the lyrate form, which is hardly, or not 



