Of the Late Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith

Annals and Magazine of Natural History Series 4

ISSN: 0374-5481 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tnah10

XXIV.—The suppositious “Bos(?) pegasus” of the late Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith

Edward Blyth

To cite this article: Edward Blyth (1871) XXIV.—The suppositious “Bos(?) pegasus” of the late Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 8:45, 204-207, DOI: 10.1080/00222937108696466

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00222937108696466

Published online: 16 Oct 2009.

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Download by: [University of California, San Diego] Date: 29 June 2016, At: 13:19 204 tV[r.E. Blyth on the suTpositltious "Bos (.9) pegasus."

XXIV.--The suTpositltious "Bos(9,) pegasus" of the late Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith. By EDWARD BLYTU~ I-Ion. !VIemb. As. Soe. &c. IN a notice of the two species of Aoudad inhabiting North Africa (Ovls lervla~ Pallas~ sp.~ of the Atlas~ and O. ornata~ Geoffroy~ of Upper Egypt) which I contributed to the ~Field' newspaper for 1V[ay 13th, 18717 I identified the Ethiopian Pegasus of Pliny with one or the other of those well-known animals--which~ indeed~ had been previously suggested by Col. C. H. Smith~ only that he did not sufficiently discrimi- nate a variety of African ruminants~ respecting which his ex- tensive erudition enabled him to collate a number of curious but vague notices in sundry languages ; while out of the whole of them he constructed a supposed animal~ which he denomi- nates u 2Bos (9.)pegasus/' and reproduces a figure (about which more anon)~ which particular figure I consider to be meant to represent an exceedingly curious and remarkabl% but domesti% Angola ram~ akin to the well-known long-lAmbed and very calf-like ram of the Guinea coast. The figure referred to appears in the treatise on the Ruminantia which the Colonel contributed to Griffith's English edition of Cuvier's ~ Rbgne Animal ' (vol. iv. p. 386). That very learned officer described his supposed "JBos (9.) pegasus" as follows :-- "The Pagasse.--The names of Pacase of Gallini and Carli~ Empaguessa of 1Vferolla~ En~acasse of Lopes and Marmol~ indicate an animal presumed to be a species of buffal% but not described with sufficient precision to be admitted into the cata- logues of nomenclators. The word is evidently of great anti- quity and extent~ as may be gathered from Pliny~ although at present banished from the regions where the Arabic has usurped the ancient languag% and confined to the regions of Angola and Cong% where it is coupled with the generic name em or en~ denoting a bovine animal. Thus engamb% a cow; em- loalunga~ another large ruminant~ which is conjectured to be the Takhaise of Daniell" (this being doubtless a misrepresentation~ from memory~ of I-[ippotragus equlnus~ the equine or roan

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 13:19 29 June 2016 antelope of South Afrie% with a beard on the chin, which is non-existent in any known species of Hippotragus); "and .Em-_pacasse. Pliny relates that Ethiopia" (i. e. Libya) "pro- duces winged horses armed with horn-s~ named Pegasi" (-the Aoudad !). "Fathers Galli and Carla observe that~ ~On the road to Loand% they saw two tgacasses~ which are animals very similar to buffaloes~ roaring like lions~ the male and female being always together. They are what% with rufous and black spots~ with ears half a yard in length~ and the horns Mr. E. Blyth on the suTposltltiozts " Bos (.9) pegasus." 205 always straight. When they see human beings they do not flee, but stand and look on.' Lopes describes them as something less than an ox, but similar in head and neck. Dapper re- ports them to be buffaloes, of a reddish colour, with long horns." Of all names, the appellation "buffalo" is about the most vaguely applied by unscientific writers. In general, as in North America, it refers to any second animal of the bovine group which is not the ordinary ox of the locality. When English graziers talk of ~ buffaloes," they are sure to mean the humped taurine cattle ; and the latter are referred to by that name in Low's 'Domestic Quadrupeds of the British Islands,' as being kept in certain English parks. The real buffaloes have come to be denominated " water-buffaloes;" but in South Africa there is a genuine buffalo (Bubalus caffer), which, as the single bovine species there inhabiting which is additional to the domestic ox, has chanced to be rightly so designated. Capt. Lyon, R.N., in his t Travels in North Africa,' describes what he styles three species of "buffalo," which prove to be the Barbary Aoudad(Ovls lervia), the large North-African Bubalis (Alcelaphus major, from its alleged size), and the Barbary Leucoryx (Oryx leucoryx). Wherefore it follows that no definite idea can be attached to the name "buffalo " when employed by writers who are not carefully discriminative zoologists. Next, Lopes describes the animal to which he refers as being '~ something less than an ox." We have heard of a wit- ness in. an English court, ofjustice, describlng a particular stone,. respecting the magmtude of whmh he was requested to give his testimony, as being ~ of the size of a piece of chalk!" Hardly less vague is the allusion of a traveller in intertropical Africa to the stature of an ox, inasmuch as there are races of taurine cattle in that part of the world which are of all sizes, from the very largest to the very smallest. The Pacasses of Congo, noticed by Fathers Galhnl and Carh, with ears half a yard in length," I should have felt inclined to refer to a species of Hip_potragus formerly in the Knowsley menagerie (a young animal, of which I have seen an unpublished co-

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 13:19 29 June 2016 lourcd drawing), only that it is stated that their horus are " always straight." By no means improbably a straight- horned species of t[~l)rotragus (.9), except that their "roaring like lions" is somewhat anomalous for a member of the Oryx group (to which thetti_p_potragi are unquestionably subordinate, or vice versd). The HipTotragl , it may be remarked, represent the horses, as the Oryges do the zebras and asses, among the grand antilopine series ! The tendency to inordinate de- velopment of the ear-conch is remarkable in sundry West- 206 Mr. E. Blyth on the suTTosititious " Bos (?) pegasus." African ruminants; and they are extraordinarily long in certain African Leporidze, and large in the diminutive Fennecs. Vide the ears of Bubalus brachyceros, represented in the ~Pro- ceedings' of the Zoological Society for 1863~ p. 158. Here we have the broad (or forest) form of ear-conch~ as likewise in B. caffer; whereas in the Asiatic buffaloes the ear-conch is narrow or lanceolate (denoting a more open and covertless abode). Again~ we perceive the lanceolate shape of ear-conch in the humped or desert form of taurlne cattle, whereas other cattle of naturally forest haunts have the broad form of ear-conch; and the same recurs in the great Derbian eland (Oreas derbianus)~ which is known to be a forest species, as contrasted with the common eland, which is a desert species. The shape of the ear-conch, therefor% is of no small value, as being indicative of the habits, not of ruminants only, but of various other species of the class Mammalia. Dapper's ~ buffaloes of a reddish colour with long horns" may be no other than the large Senegal race of Oryx leucoryx figured by F. Cuvier~ and exemplified by specimens now living at Antwerp, should the habitat also prove suitable. Here it may be remarked that a third and remarkably small race of O. leucoryx is represented by a skull in the British Museum. Col. C. H. Smith continues :-- " These testimonies are very vagu% but still indicate one and the same animal "(?) " partially misrepresented. To these accounts might be added the notice of Capt. Lyon respecting the Wadan, ' a fierce buffalo' "(!), " ' the size of an ass, having large tufts of hair on the shoulders, and very large heavy horns' (the Libyan Aoudad). This Arabic name seems derived from waad, braying or bellowing like a young camel~ and may coincide with Carli's account of the roar of Pacass% and the tufted hair on the shoulders be no inapt re- presentation of Pliny's pretended wings of his Pegasus " (right enough, only that the lateral tufts of long hair in the Aoudad grow from the fore limbs, above the mid joint); "but no place would have been deservedly given to it in this work, if in the collection of drawings formerly the property of Prince

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 13:19 29 June 2016 Maurice, of :Nassau, now in the Berlin library, there was not among the number of zoological subjects of Brazil several of Angola~ such as sheep "(!) "and an African elephant, which latter cannot have been executed from a specimen in America. The sheep also have their Congo and Angola names ; and it may fairly be conjectured that the Prince, during his command in Braail, had an artist on the African coast, from whenc% at that time, slaves were beginning to be abundantly exported to the Dutch settlements. Among these is a figure of a rural- On t]~e Worms of the Genus Perlch~eta. 207 nant with the name Pacasse written underneath it *. Judging from the general appearance of the 13ainting~ it represents a young animal, although the horns are already about as long as the head ; they are of a darkish colour, with something like ridges passing transversely, commencing on the sides of the frontal ridge, turned down and outwards, with the points slightly upturned; the head is short, thick, abrupt at the nose ; the forehead white; the eyes large and full, dark, with a crimson canthus; the neck maned with a dense and rough mane; the tail descending below the hough, entirely covered with dark long hair~ appearing woolly ; and the legs high and clumsy ; but the most remarkable character appears to consist in pen- dulous ears " (arrant domesticity!) " nearly as long as the head. The mane and tail are dark; the head, neck, body~ and limbs dark brown, excepting the pastern joints, which are white 7, (again domesticity l). " This figure cannot be referred to a known species, and it is sufficiently curious to merit an engraving. If it should appear to be a different animal from Pacasse, it may still repl~esent a new species of buffalo "(!) " or, perhaps, of Catoblepas~ or of Ovis." The last conjecture is indubitably the right one. Unques- tionably, as it al3pears to. me, the figure.represents a very extra- ordinary form of domestic sheep, of which, moreover, other races are represented in the same collection of drawings. Might not, by the way, the strange-looking sheep of intertro13ical western Africa succeed as well as goats in the Indo-Chinese and Ma- layan countries, where the attempt to maintain the European and Asiatic races of tame sheep is altogether hopeless .9

XXV.--On the Organization of the Worms of the Genus Perich~eta. By EDMOND PERRIERt. BY the kindness of M. Houllet~ chief of the conservatory department of the Museum of Natural History, who has been good enough to collect them in the soil accompanying plants sent to him, I have been enabled to investigate some living

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 13:19 29 June 2016 worms belonging to the genus PergehvBta, some of them coming from the West Indies, others from Calcutta. The group of terricolous Lumbricine Annelids being but little known anatomically, I hope to be able to continue this investigation upon the other worms which may reach me by The notes are writtea by three hands, the Prince's, Marcgrave's~and Piso's. I believe that in this instance the name is written by the first. t Translated by W. S. Dallas~ F.L.S. from the ~Comptes Rendus~' July 24, ]871~ tome lxxiii, pp. 977-280.