1846.] Description of a new species of Tibetan Antelope. 343 



the Barhal as distinct. And, as these round-horned sheep, void of the 

 lachrymal pits, unmaned, and furnished with a well developed tail, ap- 

 pear to form a natural group, distinct from the Argalis, and from Tra- 

 gelaphus — also a separate type apparently, however misdiscriminated by 

 Mr. Blyth, — I beg leave to suggest for this group the generic appella- 

 tion Pseudois (i/>£vo\)e et oic) lest, as has too frequently happened to 

 me, some closet systematizer, who never was at the pains to examine 

 nature for himself, should step in "to name and classify" (the work of 

 a moment, as ordinarily done,) my discoveries. The Argalis and Mouf- 

 flons (not to mention the Tragelaphi) seem to form two striking groups 

 among the wild sheep : our Nahoor is a complete Moufflon : hence it 

 occurs to me to ask, if the Corsican animal is, like the Himalayan, de- 

 void of suborbital sinuses ? This query may seem presumptuous ; but 

 any one who will refer to the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 

 March 8th, and November 8th, of 1836, may satisfy himself that this 

 sort of analogical inference led me justly to determine, without having 

 seen it, the structure quoad hoc of an animal (Cambing utan), which the 

 learned of Europe had long been in possession of, and yet had mis-stated 

 that structure. To come nearer to the point, Mr. Blyth, a professed 

 naturalist, even while writing a monograph on Ovis, and insisting on 

 the distinctness of his Ovis barhal, has entirely neglected to notice that 

 striking structural peculiarity, the absence of the suborbital sinus. 

 Should the Barhal and the Nahoor prove to be distinct species, and I 

 now think they may, we shall have, already, two types of Pseudois, and 

 I suspect the Moufle will make a third. Mr. Blyth's industrious re- 

 searches indicate at least, if they do not prove, the existence of many 

 wild species, which, if substantiated, will doubtless be found to present 

 several peculiarities of organization of generic or sub-generic value. 

 That gentleman is still sanguine as to the discovery of more new species : 

 but I cannot agree with him, when he insists that none of his numerous 

 wild species can be regarded as the type of the tame animal, because all 

 varieties of the latter exhibit long tails. Now the several varieties of 

 the tame sheep in the Sub-himalayas and Tibet, six in number, as known 

 to me,* have all of them short deer- like tails, and some of them in the 

 form of their horns resemble ammonoides ; and all, like ammonoides, 

 possess the feet and eye pits. The Highlanders have such a horror of 

 long-tailed sheep, that they will not even let them graze in their fields ! 

 Wherefore, Mr. Blyth has not far to look for tame sheep with short tails. 



* The Hiinia, the 1'eluk, the Silingia, the Barwal, the Cagia, the Haluk. 



