OCR Text |
Show 1891.] MR. O. THOMAS ON UNGULATES. 387 1. LAMA HUANACHUS, Mol. The Huanaco. Domestic races of 1 :- a. L. glama, L. The Llama. 6. IJ. pacos, L. The Alpaca. 2. L. VICUGNA, Mol. The Vicugna. 3. THE BUSH-BUCKS (Tragelaphus). The larger species of this genus were worked out by Sir Victor Brooke1 in 1871, and the only alteration which further material renders necessary in his account is that all the specimens from W. Africa, considered by him to belong to T. spekei, Scl., are really referable to T. gratus, Scl. This well-marked species, described from a female skin in 1880 s, nine years after Brooke's paper, was really represented then by several skulls and horns in the Museum collection, viz. the specimens referred to by him under T. spekei as b, d, and e in his " List of specimens examined." The skin e, however, was in so bad a condition that the colour-characters did not give rise to a suspicion of specific distinction, and without such a suspicion the horns would be not unnaturally looked upon as, and compared with, immature horns of T. spekei. Knowing, however, the species T. gratus from Mr. Sclater's excellent figures, one may always readily distinguish the horns by their shortness, stoutness, and less amount of curve, the extra twist found in T. spekei, which approximates that species so much to Strepsiceros, being never found iu the oldest examples of T. gratus. This is well seen on a comparison of Brooke's figure of T. spekei (t. c. p. 486) with that given by Sclater (P. Z. S. 1883, p. 36) of the head of the fine Gaboon specimen of T. gratus now in the British Museum. The revised ranges of the four large species appear therefore to be as follows:- 1. T. EURYCEROS, Og. Hab. W. Africa. Liberia (Biittikofer) ; Fantee (Mus. Brit.) ; Ashkankoloo Mountains, Gaboon (Du Chaillu, Mus. Brit.). 2. T. ANGASI, Angas 3. Hab. S.E. Africa. Pongola River, Zululand (Eastwood, Mus. Brit.); Maputa River (Proudfoot, Mus. Brit.); St. Lucia Bay (Angas; Fellowes, Mus. Brit.). 3. T. GRATUS, Scl. Hab. West Africa. Kokki, Cameroons (Allen, Mus. Brit.); Gaboon (Du Chaillu et al., Mus. Brit., Mus. Paris). 1 P. Z. S. 1871, p. 482. ' P. Z. S. 1880, p. 452. 3 Gray never published any description of this species, and therefore Mr. G. French Angas's account (P. Z. S. 1848, p. 89) must be taken as the original description. The species was named after Mr. G. Fife Angas, the father of Mr. G. French Angas, C.M.Z.S. |