OCR Text |
Show 1891.] MR. O. THOMAS ON UNGULATES. 389 (Adanson); Gambia (Whitfield, Rendall) ; Fantee (Mus. Brit.); Uganda (Speke); Chobe River, Upper Zambesi (Selous). c. T. SCRIPTUS ROUALEYNI, Gord.-Cumm. Antilopus roualeynei, Gord.-Cumm., Hunter's Life S. Afr. ii. p. 168 (1850). Dark brown in the males, the transverse stripes reduced to two or three very obscure ones on the posterior part of the body, and even these sometimes absent in the oldest males, at least on the Limpopo. Spotting variable, generally less than in T. scriptus and more than in T. sylvaticus. Hab. East Africa from British East Africa to the Limpopo. Manda Island off W7itu (Kirk) ; Mombasa (Kirk) ; Lower Zambesi, east of the Victoria Falls (Selous); Limpopo (Gordon-Gumming). Mr. Selousx considers the typical roualeyni, that found on the Limpopo, to be a slightly different form from that found on the Zambesi and the East Coast further northwards, and it is by no means impossible that the latter will hereafter be found to require varietal separation from roualeyni. d. T. SCRIPTUS SYLVATICUS, Sparrm. Antilope sylvaticus, Sparrm. Act. Holm. iii. p. 197, pi. vii. (1780). Dark brown, with no transverse stripes in adult or young, and the spots reduced to quite a few indistinct ones on the haunches. Hab. Cape Colony. 4. THE DWARF ANTELOPES (Nanotragus and Oreotragus). The conclusions come to by Sir Victor Brooke in his paper on the Royal Antelope2, are confirmed in most respects by the additional materials now available, and especially I can heartily endorse his fusion of the so-called genera Calotragus, Scopophorus, and Neso-tragus with the earlier described Nanotragus. Apparently, however, the genus Nanotragus need not be split up into subgenera at all, if we remove from it the Klipspringer, the type of " Oreotragus," which Sir Victor has also included in Nanotragus, but which seems certainly to be worthy of separate generic rank. Thus it may be readily distinguished by its very differently shaped skull, its peculiar thick brittle hairs, and more especially by the shape of its hoofs, all the other species agreeing precisely among themselves and differing from it in these three characters. Its specific name should of course be Oreotragus saltator, and not saltatrix, the latter form being merely the feminine term applied to it when it was placed in "Antilope " by Boddaert. The other Dwarf Antelopes appear to form a group so natural as to be all probably placed in the restricted genus Nanotragus. 1 P. Z. S. 1881, p. 752. ' Hunter's Wanderings in Africa,' p. 208 (1881). I must acknowledge m y extreme indebtedness to this most valuable paper, which contains an excellent account of the Chobe, Zambesi, Limpopo, and Cape Bush-bucks, drawn up from observations of many fresh specimens of both sexes and all ages. 2 P. Z. S. 1872, p. 637 et seqq. |