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Show 802 MR. E. R. ALSTON ON A FOUR-HORNED CHAMOIS. [DeC. 16, PERON, FR., et LESUEUR, C. A.-Tableau des caracteresgeneriques et specifiques de toutes les especes de Meduses connues jusqu'a ce jour. Annales du Museum, tome xiv. 1809. See pp. 332, 333. PLANCUS, J.-De conchis minus notis liber. Venetiis, 1739. See pp. 41-42. Q U O Y et GAIMARD.-Voyage de 1'Astrolabe (sous d'Urville). Les Zoophytes. Tome iv. de la partie zoologique, et Atlas zoophy-tologique. 1833. See pp. 293-296, and pi. 25. figs. 1-5. REYNAUD.-See LESSON (Centurie Zoologique). RISSO, A.-Histoire naturelle des principales productions de l'Europe meridionale. Tome v. 1826. See p. 294. SEMPER, C.-Reisebericht. Zeitschr. f. wiss. Zool. Bd. xiii. (1863) pp. 558-570, and Bd. xiv. (1864) pp. 417-426. See pp. 561 and 421. 5. O n a Four-horned. Chamois. By E D W A R D R. ALSTON, F.L.S., F.Z.S., &c. [Received December 10, 1879.] Mr. Sclater has asked me to describe the monstrous horns of Rupicapra tragus (Gray) which he exhibited at the meeting of the 18th November on behalf of M r. Rowland Ward1. This interesting specimen has been a good deal injured and carefully repaired ; but fortunately the frontal sinuses and bases of the horn-cores are uninjured, so that there can be no doubt as to the genuineness of the deformity. The four horns are all perfectly well-formed and symmetrical, (he normal pair measuring about 8*75 inches along their anterior curve, and indicating that the animal was an adult male, at least five years old. The abnormal horns grow from close to the bases of the usual pair, on the outside and a little to the rear; they are equally well formed, but are less curved and much shorter, measuring 5 and 5*25 inches respectively. The cores of the normal and abnormal horns are continuous at tbeir bases, separating a little above the level of the frontal bone; and the air-sinuses extend into both of them ; so that the deformity really consists in a bifurcation of the core, each duplication being covered by a distinct horn-aheath. I have not been able to find any record of a similar abnormity in the Chamois in the works of Swiss or German zoologists ; nor have I ever seen any exactly similar monstrosity in any other animal. In the "Many-horned Sheep" of the Hebrides the attachment of the supplementary horns is usually very irregular, and does not seem to be due to duplication of the cores. Colonel Godwin-Austen, however, informs me that in Kishtwar (a district south-east of Kashmir) the natives carefully preserve a breed of four-horned sheep, in which 1 Cf. supra, p. 666. |