1846.] Description of a new species of Tibetan Antelope. 337 



young animals, a faint list of colour passing down their outsides to* the 

 hoofs. This species is said to be totally void of caprine odour in the 

 living state. The skins certainly are so. The small testes are lodged 

 in a neat hairy scrotum, and all the adjacent parts, including the groins, 

 are entirely clad in hair, there being no trace whatever of those sinuses 

 in the groin which are so highly characteristic of the most typical genera 

 of the antelopes, that is to say, Antilopa et Gazella of the moderns. 

 Still the Goa, in my judgment, is closely and essentially affined to the 

 antelope group, by the extreme delicacy of its form ; by its manners ; 

 by the cervine shape of its scull ; by its black, round, and ringed horns ;* 

 and lastly, by the absence of caprine odour, notwithstanding that its 

 structure, according to modern views, is caprine, not antelopine : and, 

 in fact, it is throughout structurally a true Capra of Ogilby, save that 

 the females are hornless. This character, together with the others just 

 mentioned, forbid me, however, to class the delicate graceful Goa with 

 the goats proper, whilst the ovine nose, and the want of suborbital as 

 well as of inguinal sinuses, renders it impossible to range our animal 

 with the proper Antelopes or Gazelles, though it is more nearly affined to 

 the latter than to the former. The ovine nose seems to me a very im- 

 portant character ; and Mr. Ogilby, when he classed the antelopes pro- 

 per, typed by Cervicapra, in a family characterised by ' Rhinaria nulla,' 

 ought apparently to have given them as a subordinate and generic mark 

 < Rhinaria parva,' because the nude moist muzzle is a material diagnosis, 

 very decidedly forthcoming in the Antelopes, less so in the Gazelles. Col. 

 H. Smith considers that Mr. Ogilby has laid undue stress upon the inter- 

 digital pores as a generic character ; and yet Mr. O's. most accredited 

 predecessors in classification had insisted upon the presence or absence of 

 this character, together with that of the suborbital pores, as constituting 

 the distinctive marks of Ovis and of Capra. True, they were in error 

 in this instance, for goats have\ interdigital, though not lachrymary, 

 pores, and consequently Mr. Blyth's suggested genus Ammotragus is 

 based on misconception, though accidentally true to nature, at least in 

 my view of her, and without reference to systems. But, however falsely 

 used heretofore, still it does not follow, that each of these characters (the 

 pores) is not of importance, and there can be no doubt that either of 

 them may be rationally presumed to be so, and to affect the conditions 

 of existence, the habits, and economy of the animals ; whereas, several of 



* The form of the horns is rejected from modern definitions of genera, and wisely 

 so quoad the particular flexure. But still i incline to the older notion that round, 

 black, and ringed horns, as opposed generally to grey, angular-keeled, and nodose horns, 

 serve well to indicate Antelopine or Caprine tendencies. 



f Mr. B. expressly says not, and thereon founds his genus. Let him look at nature 

 instead of books, and he will see his error. 



