39 
The horns attain a length of about 15 or 14 inches, and are of a peculiar 
waxy or pale amber-colour. 
Female similar, but without horns. 
Hab. Steppes of Southern Russia, and South-eastern Siberia. 
The Saiga, although closely allied to the Gazelles in structure, is, as will 
be seen from our figure, very different in external appearance, especially as 
regards the bloated form of the nose in the adult male, which gives it a most 
ungainly look and renders it easily distinguishable from all its allies of this 
group. 
The Saiga was known to many of the ancient writers, and is described and 
figured by Gesner, in his ‘ History of Quadrupeds,’ as an inhabitant of Scythia 
and Sarmatia, under the name “‘ Colus,” which is said to have been formed by 
transposition from the native name “Sulac.” ‘The earliest good account of it, 
however, is that of the well-known naturalist J. G. Gmelin, who met with it 
during his travels in Siberia between 1733 and 1743, and described it at full 
length, in an article on new quadrupeds published at St. Petersburg in 1760, 
under the name of “ Ibex imberbis.” Upon Gmelin’s Jbex imberbis Linneus, 
in his ‘Systema Nature,’ based his Capra tatarica. Of the two generic 
names proposed for this Antelope, Saiga by Gray in 1843, and Colus by 
Wagner in the following year, we naturally prefer the oldest, and adopt as 
the proper name of this Antelope, which is the sole representative of its 
genus, Saiga tatarica. 
Buffon, in his ‘ Histoire Naturelle,’ also employed Saiga as the name of 
this animal and based his account of it mainly upon Gmelin’s description, 
stating, however, that there were specimens of its horns in the Royal Cabinet 
at Paris. Following the prior authorities, he describes the Saiga as a 
kind of wild goat found at that epoch in Hungary, Poland, Tartary, and 
Southern Siberia in herds on the plains, very fleet and active, and difficult of 
capture. We shall see, however, that the range of this animal in Europe 
has become very much more restricted in recent times. 
The best modern account of the Saiga is that given in 1865, in the Bulletin 
of the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow, by Herr Constantin Glitsch, 
of Sarepta on the Lower Volga, who was employed for two years by the | 
Imperial Russian Society of Acclimatisation to obtain living examples of this 
Antelope for the Zoological Garden of Moscow. 
VOL. III. FE 
