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Show 1876.] MR. G. BUSK ON THE FAUNA OF GIBRALTAR. 415 from which the plate of Ovis polii in the 'Proceedings' (18/4, plate liii.) was prepared, and made the following remarks on Mr. Blanford's criticisms published in the Society's ' Proceedings' for 1875 (p. 5 4 0 ) :- " Col. Gordon has asked m e to lay before the meeting his original drawing of this Sheep, which has not been successfully reproduced by our artist, Mr. Smit. The male here has not the long bushy tail spoken of by Mr. Blanford; its lower outline is distinct in the sketch, though indistinct in the plate, so that the hair on the left flank may be taken to belong to the tail. This indistinctness has misled Mr. Blanford. "Again, the black dorsal line on the female, to which Mr. Blanford objects, is far more prononce in the plate than in the drawing, in which, moreover, the colouring of the figures is neither so dark nor so rufous as it has been rendered in the plate. Mr. Blanford's criticism of the coloration of the lower parts of the male and of the drawing of his horns is certainly less applicable to the original drawing than to the plate. "As regards the apparent manes on both the male and female figures, it is admitted by Col. Gordon that in the latter this character has been exaggerated. Both Stoliczka and Severtzoff allude to short manes in their descriptions of the animal. The elongated hairs between the shoulders and behind the horns are mentioned by Stoliczka and Blanford, while Severtzoff says, ' the neck is covered by a white mane, shaded with greyish brown' (cf. P.Z.S. 1875, p. 513). I certainly found no trace of any thing like a mane or of a dorsal line in the specimen lately mounted in the British Museum ; but this character may be variable, and as yet we have comparatively but few skins of this animal. "It is quite true that Col. Gordon is no naturalist, and his sketch seems to have been made somewhat in a hurry; but it was made, he tells me, from the animal described by Stoliczka, who examined it while in progress, and would certainly have pointed out to the artist any flagrant inaccuracies." Mr. George Busk, F.R.S., read a memoir on the Ancient or Quaternary Fauna of Gibraltar, as exemplified in the Mammalian remains found in the ossiferous breccia which occurs in the caves and fissures recently explored in different parts of the Rock. Mr. Busk, after a preliminary description of the geological features of the Rock and its fossiliferous caverns and fissures, treated specially of the various bones of the Bear, Cat, Horse, Rhinoceros, Stag, Ibex, and other animals, of which the remains occur there, and proceeded to refer them to the species to which they seemed to belong. This paper will be published in full in the Society's 'Transactions.' The following papers were read :- 28* |
