OCR Text |
Show 1873.] SIR V. BROOKE ON AFRICAN BUFFALOES. 479 whilst the head represented on the second plate presents scarcely any trace of this remarkable character; and yet the agreement of the skulls in all particulars precludes the idea of this solitary character representing specific distinction. As a further illustration of the inconstancy of this character, I may mention that Mr. Blyth lately observed at Mr. Jamrach's establishment (from which place Mr. Gerrard obtained the skull and horns in m y possession) the skull and horns of a Buffalo, which in all particulars most closely resembled the last mentioned of Pel's specimens. Mr. Blyth, however, notwithstanding numerous superficial differences, perceived immediately that this very beautiful specimen, which is now in the British Museum, represented his Bubalus reclinis, and referred it without hesitation to that species. The fact of Dr. Baikie's specimens presenting the characters which appear at first sight to separate the Bubalus brachyceros of Gray from that species as represented in the Leiden Museum, taken in connexion with the fact that these as well as Pel's specimens were procured in countries intermediate to those which afforded the subjects of Dr. Gray's descriptions of the species, offers strong reasons for the conviction above expressed-namely, that these differences are but sexual. W e see, moreover, that any characters of difference presented by Pel's specimens as compared with the type of Bubalus pumilus are bridged over by the intermediate character of the specimen this evening exhibited. Thus a very reasonable probability is obtained that the Bos pumilus of Turton and the Bubalus brachyceros of Gray represent but one species-the former the male, the latter the female. But we have, I think, still further corroboration of this opinion in the remarks and plates given by M . D u Chaillu in his work on Equatorial Africa (1861). At p. 175 M . D u Chaillu figures and describes the male of the "Niare or Wild Bull" of Equatorial Africa. Both M . D u Chaillu's figure and his description of the horns are so applicable to the specimen on the table (figs. 1 & 2) that one could readily believe it had formed the subject of M. Du Chaillu's figure. Two more plates (pp. 125 & 204) are given in the same work ; and in both these the boms are represented as at p. 175. I think it therefore probable that these plates were taken from one specimen, that specimen exhibiting in an extreme a character which I have shown above to be most inconstant. Dr. Gray, in 1861, in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History' (vii. p. 468), and in his last catalogue (1872), unfortunately criticises these plates with some severity, but at the same time expresses his decided conviction of the identity of the Niare of D u Chaillu with the Buffalo of Central Africa and Sierra Leone, upon specimens of which his Bubalus brachyceros was founded. In this opinion I fully concur with Dr. Gray, and consider that the fact of M . Du Chaillu's description and plates so accurately representing the specimen on the table (which on its part, in a mutual combination of characters, exhibits such decided specific identity both with Pel's specimens and with the original of the Bos pumilus oi Turton) |