an

abound in the country of the Mongul Tartars, and the deserts between Thibet and China, and along the river Amur, to the Eastern Sea. They are very swift, take prodigious leaps, and when frightened will bound over a space of sixteen or eighteen feet at one spring. They delight in dry and rocky plains, and shun water; nor will they go into it even to save their lives, when driven by men or dogs to the brink of a stream. They are likewise afraid of woods, and always avoid them. They herd together in small flocks in the spring and summer, and collect in great numbers in the winter. In running they form a file or long line, one after another old one usually leading the way. On the approach of winter their hair grows long, rough, and hoary, so that at a distance it appears almost white. In the beginning of May the animal changes its coat for one very short, close, and tawny; the neck is very prominent, in consequence of the largeness of the windpipe; and they have a large pouch under the belly. The length of the male, from nose to tail, is about four feet and a half; the head rather thick, with horns about nine inches long, opaque, of a yellow colour, annulated almost to the ends, reclining backwards, with their points bending towards each other.

THE PASAN, OR GEMS-BOCK.

Capra Gazella. LINN. Le Pasan. BUFF.

This animal is about the size of a fallow deer; the horns are distinctly annulated, and three feet in length, the points very sharp, and about fourteen inches asunder; the greater part of the face is white, with a black mark, which commences at the base of the horns, passing down the middle, where it joins a transverse band on the nose; from this springs another mark, pointing upwards towards the eye, and reaching downward to the throat. The body and sides are of a reddish ash colour; the belly and legs are white. The

white colour of the former is divided on the sides from the reddish, ash-coloured upper parts, by a broad, longitudinal, dark band; the thighs and upper part of the fore legs are also marked with the same colour; the tail is nearly two feet long, and is covered with longish black hairs. It inhabits Persia, India, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Cape of Good Hope. This singular species, which lives in pairs, and not in herds, is the Oryx of Ælian; and one of them being caught which had lost a horn, gave rise to, or rather continued, the stories of the unicorn,* about which there has been so much dispute.

It is a beautiful animal, and has none of that timidity which generally marks the character of the antelope; but, on the contrary, if closely pursued or wounded, will coolly sit down on its haunches, and keep both sportsman and dogs at bay. It employs its long, straight, sharp-pointed horns, used in defence by striking back with its head, which renders it dangerous to approach it. Dogs are very frequently killed by it; and no peasant, after wounding the animal, will venture within its reach till it be dead, or its strength at least exhausted. The flesh of the gems-bock is reckoned to be the best venison that Africa produces.

* It is supposed, by comparative anatomists, that the rhinoceros was the unicorn of Scripture. The existence of a ruminating, cloven-footed animal, with one horn, has been said by Camper to be an impossibility; the frontal bone being originally divided in two, a horn could not have grown in the centre of the division. We know that coarse figures, representing an animal with one horn, have been traced on the rocks by savages; but from their ignorance of perspective, they drew the animal in profile, and could thus only represent one horn. Many of the profiles of quadrupeds have only one leg before, and one behind; consequently the same applies to the horns; and the Oryx of the Egyptian monuments is most probably but the production of a similarly crude style.

THE HART-BEEST.

A. Bubalis. Cuv. Le Bubale. BUFF.

This animal is supposed to be the Bubalus of the ancients, and is the most common of all the larger gazelles known in Africa. Its height to the top of the shoulders is about four feet: the form of the body is a mixture of the stag and heifer; the tail is rather more than a foot long, asinine, and terminated by a tuft of hair; the horns are very strong, black, and embossed with rings of an irregular form: they are almost close at the base, diverging upwards, and at the top bending backwards in a horizontal direction, almost to the tips, which are distant from each other. Some of these horns are eighteen inches long, and above ten inches in girth at the base. The head is rather large, resembling that of an ox; and the eyes are placed very high. The general colour of this animal is a dark cinnamon, except the rump and inner part of the thighs, which are white: the front of the head is marked with black, as is likewise the fore part of the legs. There is a pore about an inch below each eye, from which a matter is distilled: this the Hottentots preserve as a rare and valuable medicine. The large head and high forehead, together with the asinine ears and tail of this animal, render it less handsome than many of the tribe of antelopes. They associate in great herds; and although they seemingly gallop with a heavy pace, yet they run as fast as any of the larger kinds; and when they have once got a head of their pursuers, they are very apt to turn round and gaze at them. Like the wood antelope and nil-ghau, this animal drops on its knees to fight. The flesh is fine, and of an agreeable flavour, but dry.