Zoological Society. 



223 



visions, however, are exceedingly well imagined, and less encumbered 

 with trivial characters than those of De Blainville and Hamilton 

 Smith. 



M. De Blainville, whose monograph of the genus Antilope was 

 published in 1816, contented himself with separating from the main 

 group successive detachments of what he conceives to be the most 

 anomalous species, afterwards elaborating the characters of the sub- 

 genera thus formed from those of their component species. By this 

 means he has unquestionably succeeded in forming a few natural 

 groups, to which no other objection can be made than that they are 

 considered as subdivisions of a primary group which is not itself a 

 natural genus. 



To the eight genera established by De Blainville, Desmarest ad- 

 ded three others, two of which, viz. the separation of the Antelopes 

 proper from the Koodoo and Boshbok, and of the Oryxes, were de- 

 cided improvements. 



The principal merit of Col. Hamilton Smith's monograph, pub- 

 lished in Griffith's translation of the ■ Regne Animal,' consists in the 

 resolution of the residual group of De Blainville and Desmarest, 

 which he subdivides into eight minor groups, in all respects more 

 definite and natural than the original. 



The next section of the paper is devoted to the consideration of 

 the characters hitherto employed in the generic distribution of these 

 animals. 



The genera Bos, Ovis, and Capra, represented by familiar and 

 well-known types, observes Mr. Ogilby, carried with them clear 

 and definite ideas, and represented to the mind of the naturalist di- 

 stinct and determined forms ; but the genus Antilope not being ex- 

 emplified by any common domestic species familiar to the observa- 

 tion of the student, every thing connected with the genus was vague 

 and indeterminate ; the only conception it enabled him to form was, 

 that the animal, whatever else it might be, was neither an ox, a 

 sheep, nor a goat. The characters, moreover, upon which this genus 

 is established, are in reality so many negative traits, and merely 

 served to distinguish all other hollow-horned Ruminants from the 

 oxen, sheep, and the goats respectively, but they limit no positive 

 group, and consequently cannot be received as the definition of a 

 natural genus. The genus Antilope in a short time became an 

 asylum for the reception of all hollow-horned Ruminants that 

 could not be associated with the known genera Bos, Ovis, and Capra ; 

 and consequently the most incongruous forms and opposite charac- 

 ters were associated in the same genus ; till, independently of its un- 

 philosophical structure, and total want of character whether natural 

 or artificial, the practical inconvenience arising from its undue ex- 

 tension forced zoologists to devise the partial remedies detailed 

 above, and which all proceeded upon one common principle, that, 

 namely, of dividing the genus Antilope into such subordinate groups 

 as were conceived best calculated to obviate the inconsistencies, and 

 approximate those species which most nearly resembled one an- 

 other in habit and conformation. In thus subdividing the genus An- 



