The short forehead arched. The oblique small muzzle quite hairy and dry. The small pale eye void of any trace of eye pits below it. The largish narrow and pointed ears quite pendant. The moderately compressed horns set on with the full usual obliquity on the top of the head and in contact at their sharp keeled anterior edge, but separate and rounded behind, with an ovoid section and medial uniform wrinkling that is carried towards the flat smooth tips. The direction of the horns is upwards and outwards with great divergency for a goat, and a single lax spiral turn leaving the points directed upwards and a little backwards. The neck is spare. The body long yet compact. The limbs sufficiently elevated, stout and rigid, and like the body, though of course in less degree, showing all the usual tendency to excessive-hairiness. The hoofs short, high, with rigid pasterns and large conic false hoofs. Feet pits in fore feet only or in neither and medial conico-depressed tail carried curvately erected by the males who, as well as the females, have an ample beard and a moderate forelock. Teats two, as in all the rest. : Females smaller but horned; the horns smaller and scarcely spirated. Colours white, or black, or brown, with white or fawn face and limbs; pure white being rarer than in any of the foregone by much. The Sinál is seldom seen out of his own district, being perhaps less patient of change than the Chángrá or Chyapú, and for foreign exportation inferior to either of them, as well owing to this inferior hardihood, as to the smaller quantity and coarser quality of the fine sub-fleece. The mutton is good and the flesh of the kids greatly and justly prized, being far superior to that of lambs of any breed; and the milk also, like that of the other goats, is greatly and justly esteemed. The Sináls rut in autumn and procreate in spring, the females gestating upwards of 5 months, as I am positively assured, and as is true of the Ibexes, but not supposed to be so of the Egagri or of the tame goats.* Intestines 72 feet whereof the small are 53 and the great 19 feet. Cœcum 12 inches long by 3 wide. Great gut near it 2 inches wide. Another male. Intestines 78 feet, whereof small 59, and great 19 feet. See and compare general Zoology II. p. 373 and English Regnè Animal IV. pp. 298 and 301. That points like this should be subject to doubt may show the ordinary observer how much he has it in his power to do by merely using his opportunities of observation in India. Cœcum 12 inches by 3. Knees and chest nude and callous. Subfleece frequently wanting. Almost always so in summer. 4. Capra Dúgú.-The Dúgú. This is the Goat of the central region of the sub-Himálayas. But the remark applied to this region in reference to the sheep holds almost equally good as to the goats. In fact the central and lower regions of the sub-Himálayas are unsuited to goats or sheep owing to their rank pasture, excessive moisture and enormous superabundance of leeches and other parasitic creatures generated by heat and moisture amid a luxuriant vegetation. The Dúgú is bred only in small numbers by householders-and only for home consumption of the milk and flesh, both of which are excellent and eagerly consumed by the highest castes. The Dúgú extremely resembles, and is probably identical with, the ordinary domestic goat of the lower provinces, that of the upper provinces-viz. the large gaunt Roman-nosed, monstrous-eared Jamnapári-being unknown to these mountains, and unable to endure their climate in any part. The Jamnapári (Capra Jamnapária) becomes in the mountains goitrous, casts its young prematurely, breeds not, and hardly exists. But the little goat of moist Bengal does very well in the moist climate of the central and lower hills; and accordingly, I believe, that as the upper region of the hills is indebted to Tibet for its goats, so the central and lower regions are indebted to Bengal and Behar for theirs,* and that the animal we are now to describe is at least, in origin, the common domestic Goat of the Gangetic provinces, from Allahabad to Calcutta nearly. The Dúgú of the central or lower regions of the hills is distinguished from all the breeds of Tibet and of the Cachar by the frequent absence, in the females particularly, of the long hair, and the nearly as frequent absence of the interdigital pits, belonging to those races or breeds. The males however of the Dúgú breed are often as shaggy as the Chángrá or Sinál; whilst in the latter species, as we have seen, the feet pits are not invariable. Upon the whole, "feet pits in the fore feet only or none" seems to be the proper generic formula quoad this organ; whilst long or short hair can be admitted only as a very subordinate character; and with those exceptions, the Dúgú is thoroughly F. Cuvier's notices of Nepalese goats are altogether apochryphal, though copied au pied de la lettre by the English Editors of the Regnè Animal and Natural Library. The exotics of the Residency have become Nepal species, and the poor Jamnapari which we tried so vainly to acclimatise, figures as the Nepaul Goat!!! conformable both in essential and in subordinate points to the characters we have called generic, and as such placed at the head of our paper; so that, as has been already remarked, domestication would seem to have produced much less impression on the primitive goat, as typed by Egagrus than on the primitive sheep as typed by Ammon. : The Dúgú measures from snout to rump 3 to 4 feet and about 2 feet in height. Head by the curve 11 to 114, straight 9 to 10 inches. Tail only 5. Tail and hair 8. Ears 5 to 6 inches. Horns by curve 14 to 16. Their Basal periphery 6 to 7. Girth of chest 2 to 21 feet. The Dúgú is of medial size and well proportioned, the male being much larger than the female, and frequently shaggy, whilst she is always smooth. There is no sub-fleece and the hair is coarse and turned to no use, the skin only being of value when the flesh is disposed of, and the skin but rarely and unskilfully turned to use. The muzzle of the Dúgú is dry and hairy the face unarched: the forehead considerably so the ears largish and horizontal or pendant: the moderate horns turn up simply backwards, without spiral twist and with but a vague keel, though it be traceable enough in the anteal sharp edge: the neck spare the body longish yet full: the rigid limbs nor short nor long, with high short hoofs and conic false hoofs: and, lastly, medial tail, depressed and nude below and curvately raised in the males. The eye pits and mufle and groin pits are as invariably absent as in the other breeds; and the feet pits more frequently wanting than in any. The beard is ample in both sexes, and the females always have horns and two teats; and their hair is close and smooth. Intestines 93-7, whereof the small are 70 and the great 23 feet 7 inches. Cœcum 13 inches by 4. Another 108 feet, whereof small are 82, and great 26 feet, and the Cœcum 3 feet! The Dúgú breeds all the year round, but most young are produced at the close of the rains in autumn, being begotten in spring. Two are frequent at a birth, and two births in a year have been heard of; but most rarely, and well may be so, if it be true, as insisted on to me, that this breed likewise gestates above 5 months or 160 days.* And now, before concluding this long paper, I will take leave to remark, that the facts so carefully amassed, the fruit of years of patient For the period of Caprial gestation see Penny Magazine sub voce, as well as the General Zoology and Regnè Animal as quoted supra. observation, should serve, not merely to illustrate the essential characters of two groups of animals heretofore ill discriminated, but should also throw much light on those interesting questions, the effects of domestication and of climate upon the natural organisation, and the natural habits and range of species, subjects of high interest, no doubt, though a degree of ridicule has been cast upon them by the pompous dissertations of those who were at as little pains accurately to determine the geographical as the Zoological data disserted upon. 1. The Silingia Sheep. 2. The Barwál Sheep. 3. The Cágiá Sheep. Illustrations.* 4. The Dúmba variety of the Púchiá Sheep or of common breed of Gangetic provinces. 5. The Chyapú Goat. 6. The Sinál Goat. 7. Feet pits of sheep and of goats, and heads of Barwál and Silingiá Sheep. All figured for the first time and from nature. m CATALOGUE OF REPTILES Inhabiting the MALAYAN PENINSULA and ISLANDS, Collected or observed by THEODORE CANTOR, Esq., M. D., Bengal. Medical Service. (Concluded from No. CLXXXI.) VENOMOUS SERPENTS. TERRESTRIAL. GEN. ELAPS, Schneider. Head more or less indistinct, neck not dilatable; mouth and eyes small, trunk elongated, throughout of nearly equal circumference, very smooth; tail short, tapering, beneath with scutella. For the accompanying illustrations the Editors are indebted to the liberality of James Hume, Esq., at whose lithographic press they were executed.-Eds. ELAPS MELANURUS, (Shaw.) (See Plate XL, Fig. 6.) SYN.-Russell I. Pl. 8. (young). Coluber melanurus, Shaw, (young.) Wagler, Elaps trimaculatus, Merrem, apud {Wee} (Young.) Strongly iridescent light bay above; from the muzzle a longitudinal black band, joining on the neck a broader transversal black band with whitish edges; a short oblique black line behind the eye, and a similar from the nostril to the middle of the upper lip; on each side of the anterior part of the back a series of distant black dots; a broad black transversal band with whitish edges, at the root of the tail; a second similar, at a short distance from the apex; lips, throat and the anterior part of the abdomen iridescent yellowish white, changing to yellow or orange on the posterior part; the tail beneath bluish white, with large irregular black spots. Iris black; pupil circular; tongue black. Scuta 205 to 247; Scutella 24 to 32. HABIT.-Malayan Peninsula. Tenasserim, Nerva, (Coromandel.) In general appearance this species nearest approaches Elaps intestinalis, (Laurenti), but the eye is comparatively larger, while the nearly equilateral, hexagonal, vertical shield is smaller in the present. The eye is surrounded by two post-orbitals, one præ-orbital, and beneath by the third and fourth upper labials. Of the latter seven pairs cover the jaws. The trunk is throughout covered by 13 series of smooth, sub-imbricate, rhombic scales. The one described by Russell, hitherto the only describer from nature, was a young animal. A similar, upwards of a foot in length, was killed in Province Wellesley. But the late Mr. Griffith in one of his botanical excursions, captured an individual of the following dimensions: |