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On the Four-horned Antelopes of India. By B. H. Hodgson, Esq., 

 F.L.S., Z.S., With Plates. 



It is I believe generally acknowledged, that no group of Mammals 

 stands more in need of thorough revision than that of the Four- 

 horned Antelopes. These constitute the Tetracerine racemus of H. 

 Smith, whose definition of the group and enumeration of the species 

 may be seen in the English Regne Animal, Vol. iv. pp. 253 to 257. 

 We owe to Dr. Leach's sagacity, the discrimination of these animals 

 as a separate genus at a period when there were very few and insuffi- 

 cient materials to guide him. Colonel Smith reviewed the group 

 in 1827 with his usual ability; but he was necessitated to leave 

 most of the influential generic characters unnoticed, and even to 

 hesitate as to the specific independence of the only two species then 

 known, or Antelope Chickara of Hardwicke, and Antelope Quadri- 

 cornis of Blainville, with which latter, after communicating with Dr. 

 Leach, the Colonel identified the Striaticornis of that gentleman. 



Since the period of the publication of the Regne Animal, now twenty 

 years, nothing further has been done to elucidate the genus or its 

 species, save by that able Indian Zoologist Walter Elliott, of the 

 Madras Civil Service, who, in 1839,* by giving an accurate and 

 full description of the species proper to Southern India, afforded 

 some valuable help towards clearing up the general subject. My 

 note books contain a good deal of information touching the structure 

 and habits of the Tetracerines, of which two species are found in the 

 Tarai of Nepal ; and I shall now endeavour, with the help of my own 

 stores, eked out by what I find recorded in books, to exhibit the 

 essential characters of the genus, and to enumerate and define all 

 the known species, adding two new ones of my own to the three 

 already adverted to. 



These beautiful little animals possess high interest, as being the 

 only truly four-homed quadrupeds known, and also as forming with 

 the Muntjacs, a link between the solid and hollow-horned rumi- 

 nants ; for they are allied to the antelopes by their general structure 

 and obvious characters, but to the deer by having four teats and 

 a large moist muzzle, both features of primary importance ! 

 ■ Catalogue of Mammals, Madras Journal, No. 25, p. 225. 



