Page:Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Vol 1.djvu/94

66 In size, the horns vary from 22 to 27 inches of straight measurement, and are straighter in proportion as they are less fully grown. The number of the annuli seems to depend on the size of the horns; their development, not so; for in the smallest that I possess the rings are as strongly marked as in the largest. The rings are round-edged, and very fully and uniformly displayed on the frontal surface; much less fully or regularly on the dorsal and lateral surfaces; round both which the annuli are apt to be continued brokenly only and evanescently. As if, however, to prove that the true character of these marks is annulation, you will sometimes find a ring carried all round the horn in equal and full development. The divergency of the horns at their tips is usually as half their length: the interval at the bases so small, that the little finger can barely be passed between the horns in that part.

The lateral compression is always strongly marked, and extends evanescently to within about six inches of the tips of the horns.

The terminal portion is smooth and rounded, and the extreme points sharp, and turned inwards as well as forwards.

Nipal, March 1, 1832.

In my description of the Jarâi, above alluded to, I observed that it has "no peculiar elongation of the hair on any part of the body."

The materials of that description were chiefly derived from the examination of a living animal; which examination was conducted in August, or at the height of the hot-weather, when, their being really no signs of such elongation of the hair, I stated the fact accordingly.

Subsequently, it occurred to me, that the hairy covering of the Ruminantia is apt to vary considerably in character with the seasons as-well as with increasing years, and I therefore again visited and examined the individual in question (a young male), in the beginning of February; when, somewhat to my surprise I confess, I found the inferior surface of his head, as far forwards as the gape, the whole of his neck, and the top of his shoulders, invested with shaggy hair more than twice the length of that of the body. So adorned, the animal is readily assignable, (with the assistance of Griffith's Cuvier, a copy of which I have just received from my bookseller,) to the Rusa group of Major H. Smith, and possibly to the species Equinus of that able writer. Since my description of the JaraiJarâi [sic] was composed, I have received some splendid spoils and important