1847] Further Notice of the Species of Wild Sheep. 35 i 



But, however falsely used heretofore," &c. &c. Now I had several 

 times even pointed out, to different friends, who have accompanied me 

 to the Calcutta bazar, how to distinguish legs of Sheep mutton from 

 legs of Goat mutton, by the invariable token here alluded to ; and 

 I therefore felt some surprise at Mr. Hodgson's assertion : but as he 

 recommends me to " look at nature, instead of books," and as some 

 tame Goats were immediately at hand, I of course had them caught 

 and examined them ; when I found that they do possess interdigital 

 pores on the fore-feet only — -not on the hind-feet, — a piece of informa- 

 tion which I infer to be as new to Mr. Hodgson as the existence of 

 pores on the fore-feet proved to myself. But I say nothing about an 

 " important oversight," on his part, in having (when once about it) 

 overlooked the circumstance of the non-existence of interdigital pores 

 on the hind-feet of the common Goat : but will merely remark on the 

 probability that Ammotragus was not so " misdiscriminated by Mr. 

 Blyth," after all, but that it will be found to differ from the Goats in 

 having, like other Sheep, interdigital orifices on all four legs. 



We next come to my " oversight equally important," in the fact of 

 my not having mentioned that O. burrhel was deficient in the subor- 

 bital sinuses, any more than Mr. Hodgson mentioned the same defi- 

 ciency in O. nahoor, in his elaborate and latest description of the latter 

 species, published in X. 23 1 ! To be sure, Mr. Hodgson alludes to my 

 being " a professed naturalist :" but at the time I drew up the * Mono- 

 graph of the species of wild Sheep,' I was surely, in every respect, quite 

 as much an amateur in the matter as himself, either then or now, and 

 was very considerably his junior in such investigations. The different 

 new species described in that paper are, indeed, the first novelties in 

 the class of mammalia which I ever published !* Nevertheless, I can- 

 not think of admitting the implied distinction between an amateur 

 naturalist and a " professed" one. Whoever undertakes to describe new 

 species of organized beings, by so doing professes himself a naturalist ; 



* And, therefore, I maintain that the somewhat harsh (not to say captious) tone of 

 Mr. Hodgson's remarks on this labour of mine is altogether uncalled for, under the 

 circumstances. Can Mr. H. cite a paper of his own which shows, on the face of it, 

 anything approaching- to the same amount of research amongst the labours of hi* 

 predecessors? Or one that could have cost himself more labour in other respects I Or 

 that has added more to the previous knowledge of the subject ? 



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