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Show 52 MR. E. BLYTH ON TWO NEW ANTELOPES. [Jan. 14, bubalis in being fully as large as the Hartbeest, and in having black markings in front of all four feet above the hoofs. In the Museums of Amsterdam and of Leyden there are mounted specimens of this animal, which have hitherto been supposed to exemplify the true B. bubalis (which those Museums do not contain), and ot which I repeat that I lately saw a living adult at Antwerp of the usual very inferior size. I have also recently seen several frontlets of the larger race, some of which were received (together with frontlets of Oreas derbianus) from the west coast of Africa; but the Boselaphus bubalis, var. 1, of Dr. Gray (P. Z. S. 1850, p. 139), which I take to refer to the same animal, is stated by him to have been brought by Mr. Louis Fraser from Tunis. I suspect that it is chiefly a western race, though more or less diffused also in the region tenanted by the smaller and more familiarly known B. bubalis ; while a third and eastern representative of the same form exists in the Antilope lichtensteini of Dr. Peters, which I only know from his figures and description of it (Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique, p. 190, tt. 43, 44). By the kind permission of Mr. H. Ward, taxidermist, of Vere Street, I am enabled to exhibit a pair of frontlets (evidently male and female) of what I shall now designate as Boselaphus major, received from the west coast of Africa, and also a frontlet of B. bubalis (male) for comparison ; and at the same time I exhibit a characteristic skull of the Hartbeest. There is a good pair of frontlets of B. major in the collection of Alfred Denison, Esq., which I refer to because that of the male retains the skin of the forehead with its hair on, the latter being of a bright chestnut hue where it is black in the Hartbeest. So far as I can perceive, the horns of the three North-African species are similar in shape, those of B. major being only distinguishable by their superior size; and all may be readily told from those of the Hartbeest by the difference at the base when viewed in front, the horns of the latter diverging in the form of the letter V, those of the others in the form of the letter U. The specimen (such as it is) of B. major in the national collection is only a skin without horns or hoofs. Another animal to which I would call the attention of the Meeting is the Kudu, figured by Sir Andrew Smith, in his ' Zoology of South Africa,' under the name Damalis kudu (both sexes of it), as distinguished from the ordinary large and familiarly known Kudu, the best figure of which, to m y knowledge, is that by Sir W . Cornwallis Harris in his ' Portraits of the Game and Wild Animals of South Africa,' pl. 20. The one is described to measure 4 feet in height at the shoulders, the other 5 feet. The male of the large species is adorned with a copious fringe of long hair down the front of the neck, of which the mature male of the other shows not a trace. There is also a difference in the character of the markings of the body, which is more recognizable to the eye than capable of satisfactory description. The large species is the Condoma of Buffon (Hist. Nat. tome xii. p. 301, and t. xxxix.) and of authors in general. Dr. Riippell, however, informs us that the Abyssinian Kudu is one-third |
