2 MOSCHUS MOSCIIIl'ERUS. 



Spec. Char. Fur of a grey brown ; hair coarse ; a 

 sac or follicle before the prepuce filled with an unc- 

 tuous musky substance ; size of the roebuck. 



Moschus cnpreolus; Gesner, Qttadr. 61)5. Animal moscliifertim ; Rail Hist. 



Quadr. 127. Johnston, Quailr. t. 2 l J. Schroeck, Hist, Dloschi, i. t. 1. Capro 



uiosclii; Aldrov. /43. Tragus moschifcrus ; Klein, Quadr. 18. I.eMusc; 



liujon, Hist. Nat. xii. 3(31. and Suppt. vi. 221. t. 29. Moschus moscliifcrus ; 



Syst. Nat. Gmelin, i. 172. Show, Zool. ii. 24»). t. 171. Thibctiau Musk; 



Pennant, Hist. Quadr. 1. 124. 

 Le Muse, Fr. ; // Musthio, It. ; El Almizcle, Sp J i)n.? Bisamthier, Ger. ; 



Desmerdyret, Dan. ; Dis/nans!)ock, Swed. ; Kabarga, Rush, j Ales/i/r, Arab. ; 



Xe, Chin. 



The valuable and powerful aromatic substance from which this ani- 

 mal takes its name, was long known and highly prized as an article 

 of the materia medica, before any certain account of the animal 

 itself had been obtained by naturalists. Resident in the remote 

 parts of Asia, and inhabiting the wildest and most elevated regions, 

 it was considered only as an object of the chase, and confounded 

 with the different species of deer and antelopes, with which in 

 manners and habit it is so nearly allied. It appears to have been 

 unknown to the ancients -, and although the drug which this animal 

 yields was employed from time immemorial, no notice of the 

 species to which it belongs existed, till Abuzied Serassi, an Arabian 

 author, described it as a deer with horns. Serapion, who flourished 

 about the end of the eighth century, was the first who introduced 

 a knowledge of the animal into western Europe. Avicenna, 

 Gesner, Aldrovandus, and others followed; but Grew gave the 

 first satisfactory description. 



The Thibetian Musk resembles the roe-buck in form but has no 

 horns, and scarcely any tail. It measures about three feet four inches 

 in length, and weighs from twenty-five to thirty pounds. It is some- 

 what more than two feet in height, with the hind considerably 

 longer than the fore legs ; which circumstance enables it to make 

 prodigious leaps. The eyes are destitute of a lachrymal sinus ; they 

 are large with a rufous brown iris ; the ears are three inches in 

 length; pointed, erect, like those of the rabbit, furnished internally 



