OCR Text |
Show 552 MR. P. L. SCLATER ON THE [Jlllie 23, 9. Note on the Wild Goats of the Caucasus. By P. L. S C L A T E R , M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the Society. [Received June 17, 1887.] In my " Remarks on the various Species of Wild Goats," read before the Society in M a y last1, I followed Blasius, Gray, and other authorities in uniting AUgoceros pallasi, Rouiller, with Capra cauca-sica, Giild. The recent receipt by the British Museum of Natural History of specimens of what is doubtless the true O. caucasica makes it evident that this identification is quite erroneous, as will indeed be at once manifest from the sketches now exhibited of these two very different animals. Thinking the existence of these two fine species must be well known to our excellent Corresponding Member Dr. Radde, I wrote to him for information on the subject, and received a reply (dated Tiflis, February 9/21), from which the following is an extract:- " In accordance with your wish, I send you some short notes on Capra caucasica and AEgoceros pallasi. The former is a good species, and inhabits the western range of the Great Caucasus around the centre of Mount Elbruz. On Kasbeck I have never found this species, but only C. pallasi; so also throughout the whole of the eastern Caucasus, east of Kasbeck, and in all Daghestan only C. pallasi is found. Blasius has united the two species ; and if one only regards the horns, it must be allowed that some very old examples of C. pallasi resemble in the form of curve C. caucasica, but always have their points more turned inwards. I obtained horns of this form from Suanetia, i. e. on the south side of the .Great Caucasian range. "Dinnik published an article on these two species in Russian, about three or four years ago, in the ' Schriften der Naturforscher Gesellschaft' of St. Petersburg, and gave figures of their horns. In C. pallasi the horns lie flatter and twist more outwards from the forehead ; in C. caucasica they go mostly directly backwards and outwards, with the exception of the points, in one plane. I send herewith copies of Dimiik's figures ; but should remark that I possess very old horns of C. pallasi which also lie almost in one plane, with the points turning in a half-crescent shape towards one another. I send you also a sketch of these horns. This last form perhaps represents a third species, as they fit in well neither with C. caucasica nor with C. pallasi. On the whole, however, I am of opinion that the form of the horns varies much in individuals. " Both the species belong to the Great Caucasus, and are not found on the Little Caucasus, or Armenian Highlands. Here, however, Capra agagrus, from the sea-level up to the high alpine heights of 12,000 feet, and upon Mount Ararat to 14,000 feet, takes their 1 See P. Z.S. 1886, p. 314. |