3f)2 Further Notice of the Species of Wild Sheep. [April, 



11. O. masimon, L. Described by me from life, and a further notice 

 given in J. A. S. X, 878. "The Argalis and Moufflons (not to men- 

 tion the Tragelaphi)"* writes Mr. Hodgson, " seem to form two strik- 

 ing 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 Hima- 

 layan, devoid of suborbital sinuses V* To this I can reply, that the 

 Prince of Canino states that it is so devoid :f hut however this may be, 

 if Mr. Hodgson wishes to subdivide the group of wild Sheep, he is 

 altogether wrong in approximating the Nahoor and Burrhel to the 



Pr. Johnii ! This, too, is done without so much as a note of interrogation ; while to the 

 considerably more nearly allied Pr. anchises, Elliot, he does affix a mark of doubt — it 

 being', however, with Pr. priamus of the Coromandel coast and Ceylon, distinct also. 



With equal positiveness, in his ' Catalogue of the Species of Mammalia in the British 

 Museum,' Mr. Gray identified Bos gaums and B. frontalis (not to cite other instances of 

 like precipitancy) ! But he has now Mr. Hodgson's specimens of skulls of these two Boves, 

 and, as a matter of course, enumerates them as separate species. So, with adequate 

 data to form an opinion upon, will he by and bye admit Ovis Vignei and the different 

 Monkeys alluded to ; for to imagine otherwise will then even appear preposterous ! 



It will be necessary for me to go critically over this catalogue of Mr. Hodgson's 

 species, upon which I have more than a few remarks and corrections of nomenclature and 

 of synonymes to offer ; but T shall confine myself here to one further remark, relative 

 to the particularly cool manner in which Anthusstriolatus, Blyth,is placed as asynonyme 

 of A. rufescens : the fact being, that my description of A. striolatus is not even yet pub- 

 lished, and the name could only have transpired through Mr. Jerdon's bare mention of 

 it, in the ' Madras Journal' No. XXXI, p. 136 ; unless, indeed, Mr. Jerdon has himself 

 forwarded specimens of this rare Indian Pipit to Europe, in which case I do seriously 

 object to provisional and unpublished names of my coining being thus introduced to the 

 world as empty synonymes. 



Mr. Gray has, in fact, placed not a few synonymes to my credit (or discredit) in this 

 catalogue, of which I shall hasten to disavow the paternity ! 



* What does Mr. H. mean by the Tragelaphi ? Tragelaphus, Ham. Smith, stands for a 

 genus of Antelopes, of which the Guib and Boschbok and Ruppell's Decula are the types. 

 If he wants a subgeneric name for the African Wild Sheep, he is perfectly aware that 

 I have termed it Ammotragus. How would he approve of his Psevdois being thus con- 

 temptuously passed over 1 



t Vide Jardine's ' Naturalists' Library,' Art. Moufflon. I have some impression, 

 nevertheless, of having observed small ones ; which is rather confirmed by Mr. Ogilby's 

 remark, in his ' Mammalogy of the Himalaya,' (vide Royle's Botany, &c.) that " O. 

 nahoor is intermediate in character between 0. musimm and O. tragelaphus^ which latter 

 species it resembles in the form of the horns" (?), " and in the absence of the crumens, 

 or tear-pits, ivhich distinguish the rest, of the genus." Now a specimen of 0. musimon 

 was set up in the museum of the Zoological Society, at the time that its then Secretary, 

 Mr. Ogilby, indicted the remark here quoted. 



