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Show 33S DR. J. M U R I E O N T H E [May 26, As a whole, it may be said that in its skeleton minus the skull differs little if at all from most Antilopidae, and in less or greater degrees is unconformable to the other horned and hornless Ruminantia. When the cranium is studied and made a subject of analysis as to its taxonomic relations, oddly enough it perplexes, by the conformation of its structure and bearings to different Ruminant groups. The horn-cores in composition and place are those of the tribe Bovidae- not situated, however, as in the Oxen, the majority of Antelopes, the Sheep, and the true Goats, but after the fashion of the small section of the so-called Caprine Antelopes-that is, erect and supraorbital ; but they differ from those of the latter group and closely simulate true Goat's horn-cores in their breadth and compression. W e detect antilopine or caprine formation in the non-depression of the lachrymal bone, in the jutting-out of the orbits, in the contour of the horizontal palatal plate, in the convexity of the glenoid surface, in the rather rudimentary development of the postarticular ridge, and, lastly, in the ensheathment of the styloid process. To match these, diagnostic points as conspicuously cervine (and partially true bovine) obtain. There are the general flattening of the upper surface of the skull, the bifurcate, pointed, and widely posterior nasals, the great size of the supraorbital fissure, the forking of the subanterior portion of the maxilla, the large supraorbital foramen, the nearly vertical and relatively flat supraoccipital, the differently set and ridged condyle, the broad triangular flattish and small tuberculate basioccipital, and, finally, the moderate- sized triangular auditory bulla. There is yet to be added to the specialities of this anomalous Ruminant the Giraffe characters of (1) no false hoofs (met with, however, in Calotragus campestris), and (2) Deer-pronged and periodically shed horns. Now, from a review of the foregoing anatomy and externals of the Prongbuck, if I were asked by a single term to denote what the animal is, I should be obliged to Germanize the English phraseology and name it a Giraffe-hoofed, Sheep-haired, Deer-headed, Goat-glanded Antelope - an expression however rugged, yet explicit enough to haffle those who are sceptical of gradational forms. This much for the first premise from which I started, and which bears out significantly in living forms those tentative remarks concerning the interblending of ruminant types which the excellent M. Albert Gaudry utters in his general considerations of the •'Animaux Fossiles de l'Attique" (Paris, 1862, p. 356). In regard to the second premise, its place-judging from the totality of structure (excluding the brain, not examined), it appears to me that the proposal to rank the Cabrit as a family per se (Antilocapridee) merits attention. Notwithstanding what has been said of transitional forms, the present career of biological inquiry has not yet arrived at the stage when limited divisions can be dispensed with, although lines of demarcation are broken apace. Provisionally, therefore, and for aught I can say to the contrary, the single genus and species Antilocapra americana may preside as the type of a |
