OCR Text |
Show 18 DR. A. GUNTHER ON TWO [Jan. 6, relates, unless it be the organ by which peculiar sounds are produced, as mentioned by Brehm. It is not peculiar to the male, though more developed in that sex than in the female. The hairs on the crown of the head are prolonged, stiff, pointing backwards to between the ears, forming a flat depressed crest, as in Neotragus saltianus. The colour of the body of the animal is a brownish yellow, finely grizzled with brown-this colour being produced by each hair having two or three broad brown rings, the terminal ring forming sometimes the tip of the hair, sometimes being somewhat remote from it. The grizzly appearance gradually changes into a uniform light reddish-brown, which occupies the whole of the fore and hind legs. The upper part of the throat, the abdomen, and the inner side of the fore legs and thighs are dirty whitish ; lower part of the throat tinged with brownish; the long hairs of the head brown, with broad yellowish rings; snout and outer side of the ears brown; a white streak above the eye. The horns are very similar to those of Neotragus saltianus. They are almost parallel, marked by strong, but rather irregular, sub-reticulated annulations, which completely surround the horn ; these disappear towards the middle of the length of the horn. The annulated portion is also longitudinally rugose, the terminal third only being smooth. The following are the measurements of the female :- in. Length of the head 4\ >> >•> ear 2^ „ ,, body and neck 13 „ „ fore leg (from the elbow-joint) 7-j „ „ hind leg (from the knee) .... 10 „ „ hind foot (from the heel) . . 6\ Measurements of the male :- Length of the head 5£ „ „ ear (shrunk) 2% I may add that the opening of the lacrymal gland is very distinct, that the tail is very short, apparently composed of a few vertebrae only, and that the spurious claws are as small as in the Abyssinian species. Any doubts which might have been entertained with regard to the distinctness of this species disappear on comparison of the skulls of the two animals. The lacrymal groove, which in Neotragus saltianus is rather shallow, is so much deepened in the Somali species as to receive easily the end of a man's thumb. Secondly, the lateral ramus of the intermaxillary is singularly curved in the shape of an S, very slender, and separated from the lacrymal bone by a broad ascending process of the maxillary, which, therefore, touches the side of the nasal bone (see fig. 2, p. 19). In the Abyssinian species the intermaxillary is straighter and stouter, extending to the lacrymal, with which it forms a suture (see fig. 4, p. 19). |