AT 
Dr. C. Abel, who was at that time one of the Secretaries of the Asiatic Society 
at Calcutta. Dr. Abel, after making a few additions to the description, and 
propesing to name the animal Antilope hodgsoni, read his paper at one of the 
Meetings of the Asiatic Society, and, as it appears from notices in the 
‘ Philosophical Magazine’ of 1826 and ‘ Brewster’s Journal of Science’ of 
1827, had it published in the Calcutta Government Gazette or Journal. 
But Hodgson, probably owing to the death of Dr. Abel shortly afterwards, 
was unaware of this fact, and believing that Dr. Abel had lost or neglected 
his communication, redescribed the species in 1830 under the name Antilope 
hodgsont, which he was told that Dr. Abel had applied to it. At that date 
(1830) Hodgson states that the living specimen already referred to was the 
only example he had ever seen of this animal, and that up to that time he 
had never been able to get another example of it alive or dead. It is clear, 
however, that Hodgson shortly after this date was enabled to obtain further 
specimens of this Antelope. In one of his letters published in the ‘ Pro- 
ceedings of the Zoological Society ’ for 1832 it is stated that three individuals 
had been examined, and in a subsequent communication (dated from Nepal 
in February 1834) skins of the Chiru of both sexes are referred to as being 
amongst other skins of mammals and birds which had been recently despatched 
to the Society. In the latter communication also Mr. Hodgson suggests the 
propriety of regarding the Chiru as representing “a new subgenus to be 
termed Pantholops, the vulgar old name for the Unicorn.” Naturalists have 
generally acquiesced in Hodgson’s suggestion on this point, and we follow 
the usual practice in denominating the present species Pantholops hodgsoni. 
Other names, however, have been proposed. In 1827 Lesson, in his 
‘Manuel de Mammalogie,’ called this Antelope Antilope chiru, quoting as 
his reference an article in the ‘ Quarterly Oriental Magazine’ for 1824 
(p. 260), which is, however, merely another version of Abel’s paper. 
About the same date also Hamilton Smith, in one of the volumes of 
Griffith’s edition of Cuvier’s ‘ Animal Kingdom,’ proposed, with a note of 
interrogation, to give the name Antilope kemas to the Chiru, quoting its 
description from one of the above-mentioned reports of Abel’s original paper. 
We are quite satisfied, however, that it is best to employ the specific name 
hodgsoni for this species as that which was first applied to it. 
Since the days when Hodgson was Resident in Nepal many British travellers 
and sportsmen have penetrated into the snowy ranges of the Himalaya, and 
