1847.] On Various Genera of the Ruminants. 703 



heavily wrinkled, angular and compressed, by deer-like tails, no beard 

 nor mane nor caudal disc. 



Type, Ovis Musimon. The Moufflon. Habitat Corsica, Sardinia. 



N. B. The ' Mufle' is the naked moist skin round the end of the 

 upper lip and nostrils, seen in perfection in the Ox. The ' eye-pits' 

 are slits or punctures on the cheek, just below the eye. They are 

 round or linear and elongate : and, if the latter, are curved or straight 

 and can be turned almost inside out, or are partially or wholly immobile. 

 The * feet-pits' are punctures in front of the pastern, in the cleft be- 

 tween the two bones. The ' groin-pits' are fissures in the groin more 

 or less definite in outline, and furnished with glands which secret a 

 fragrant viscid substance very like the secretion of the other sinuses. 



The ' calcic glands' are placed on the stifle, inside and outside, or 

 only the one, and are often naked and tumid externally. There is a 

 whorl or callous nude spot in many quadrupeds at its side. 



The ' tail gland' of the Musks is very large and covers the whole 

 tail nearly, and has a linear longitudinal pore on each side, and an 

 abundant secretion. 



The * preputial gland' of the Musks is analogous to that of the 

 civets and screwtails (Paradoxurus, vulgo Malwa.) It is placed on the 

 prepuce, the penis opening in the midst of it. This organ is clearly 

 subservient to sexual purposes, and so probably are several of the 

 others, though the eye-pits have been variously referred to the facili- 

 tation of breathing and of smelling. The supposed end of the inter- 

 digital gland and pore or feet-pits, viz., the lubrication of the foot and 

 preservation of the hoof in hot sandy deserts, is clearly erroneous, 

 since the Thar has these organs of enormous size in all 4 extremities, 

 though it be the tenant of moist cool mountain forests. It is proba- 

 ble that the secretion from the foot pores enables these animals to 

 find one another in those wildernesses of vast forest trees and dense 

 undergrowth which constitute their range. 



The shape of the orifice and of the gland, and the nature of the 

 secretion from the latter, as well as the periodical augmentation thereof, 

 should be closely attended to — and that generally, or with reference to 

 all these pits or sinuses. The distinctive form of the upper outline of 

 the scull, and character of the core of the horns, in the Antelopidae or 

 Antelope kind, and in the Capridse or Goat and Sheep kind, and again 



4 Y 



