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Show 1873.] ON THE GAZELLES OF INDIA AND PERSIA. 313 1. Note on the Gazelles of India and Persia, with Description of a new Species. By W . T. BLANFORD, C.M.Z.S. [Eeceived February 27, 1873.] India is the extreme eastern limit in Southern Asia of the geuus Gazella, this form being one of the numerous African types which, although occurring in the Indian peninsula, do not pass to the eastward of the Bay of Bengal. The Indian Gazelle, however, differs to an important extent in its distribution from the other Antelopes of the Indian plains. It extends less to the eastward in India, whilst recent researches have shown it to have a considerable extension to the westward in the countries bordering on India. This peculiarity in the distribution is also connected with the circumstance that, whilst the remaining antelopes of the Indian plains, viz. Antilope cervicapra, Portax pictus, and Tetraceros quadricornis, differ widely in specific and even in generic characters from any of their African allies, and are unconnected with the latter by any existing forms in the intervening tracts of Persia and Arabia, the Gazelle of India is only just specifically separable fr-jm the nearly allied species in Northern Africa, and cognate races extend throughout the intervening country of South-western Asia. The Nilgai, Four-horned Antelope, and Indian Antelope are, in fact, records of a time when India was connected with Africa across the now intervening ocean, whilst Gazella bennetti is in all probability a comparatively recent immigrant into Southern Asia. In my recent journey through Baluchistan and Persia, I have obtained some fresh and interesting evidence as to the extension of the Indian Gazelle to the westward, and of the range in Southern and South-western Persia of the Persian Gazelle, G. subgutturosa. I have also procured from the edge of the Sistan desert a specimen (unfortunately only a female) of a form which, at the first glance, struck me as novel. Since returning to England, Sir Victor Brooke has confirmed my opinion that this belongs to an hitherto undescribed Gazelle, belonging to the type of Gazella dorcas and G. bennetti. I ought to add that I have for some years past, in India, paid particular attention to the range of G. bennetti in that country; and I shall endeavour in the present paper to give what is known on the subject. 1. GAZELLA SUBGUTTUROSA. The Persian Gazelle* is entirely restricted to the high land of Persia, and is, so far as I know, not found either on the plains of Mesopotamia or on the coasts of the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. It is pretty generally known that in Persia the land rises somewhat rapidly, at a distance usually of 100 to 150 miles from the sea, into ranges of mountains varying in height from 8,000 or 10,000 to 15,000 and even 18,000 feet, beyond which again, after passing * For many details as to the distribution of this animal I am indebted to m y friend Major St. John, R.E. |