OCR Text |
Show 1892.] OF THE GENUS CEPHALOLOPHUS. 429 of the species hitherto considered. Ears long, longer than the distance from the anterior canthus to the tip of the nose, their tip narrow and pointed. General colour of body pale greyish brown, sometimes with a yellowish tinge, but very variable in tone ; more or less grizzled, owing to the hairs being annulated with yellowish and brown. Face rufous or yellowish, with a deep brown longitudinal patch on the nasal region, rarely extending; upwards to the bases of the horns. Throat and belly like back. Chin, inner sides of fore arms and of thighs, and underside of tail whitish or pure white. Front of fore legs with a brownish line running down them to the hoofs. Metapodials brown. Tail black above and white below, but the base above is commonly coloured like the back. Horns present only in 3 \ These set up at a considerable angle to the line of the nasal profile; slender, tapering, their bases roughened but not markedly thickened, their greatest basal diameter going about 6 or 7 times in their length. Skull long and narrow. Anteorbital fossae of medium depth, their border above generally rounded, not sharply ridged ; their bottoms about 20 mm. apart in a fine male. Muzzle long, the distance from the anterior edge of the orbit to the gnathion much exceeding the greatest zygomatic breadth. Mesial notch of palate extending some way in front of the lateral ones. Dimensions.- 3 - Height at withers 575 ; ear 110; hind foot 263. Skull-basal length 183 ; greatest breadth 85 ; anterior rim of orbit to gnathion 112; nasals, length 71, breadth 35; muzzle 64 ; length of molar series 61. Hab. Southern Africa, from the Cape northwards on the west to Angola [Gabriel (Brit. Mus.); Anchieta (Lisb. Mus.)], and on the east to Taita [Wray (Brit. Mus.)] and Mount Kilima-njaro [Hunter (Brit. Mus.)]. This common and widely spread species has been made the basis of a large number of untenable species, mostly without any really valid excuse. Certainly the species is rather variable in coloration, especially as to the tone of the general body-colour and the extent of the dark patch on the face; but the differences are all obviously of little essential importance, and I have no hesitation in assigning all the names above given to one single species. C. grimmii and C. abyssinicus together form a little group somewhat apart from the other species, but I do not think this group, to which Gray gave the name of Grimmia, is worthy of generic or even of subgeneric rank. The character of the female being hornless, on which some stress has been laid, is neither constant in C. grimmii nor non-existent in other species2, and the other characters are all rather of degree than of kind, and all very difficult of definition. Other species seem also to lead up towards the group, as for example C. coronatus, which, when adult specimens are obtained, may prove to be quite closely allied to C. abyssinicus. 1 Mr. Selous, however, says (P. Z. S. 1881, p. 763) " although the females are almost always hornless, I have met with three examples bearing horns." 2 See C. maxwelli, supra p. 426. PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1892, No. XXX. 30 |