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Show 1894.] ON THE DWARF ANTELOPES OE THE GENUS MADOQUA. 323 eight times at a few yards distance in the fearfully dense forest, without once seeing them, and organizing a drive next day they broke through the line of beaters and got away, making for the distant Galla Hills. These are the only Buffaloes I ever beard of in Somaliland. They are said by the Gallas to be plentiful on the Webbe Web, a tributary of the Juba, three days distant from Karanle. 2. On the Dwarf Antelopes of the Genus Madoqua. By OLDFIELD T H O M A S , F.Z.S. [Eeceived March 17, 1894.] The genus Madoqua (by which name, as Mr. Sclater has pointed out, Neotragus of most authors should be knownx) consists up to the present of three species-M. saltiana, Blainv., from Abyssinia, M. kirki, Giinth., from S. Somali and E. Africa, and M. clama-rensis, Giinth.2, from Damaraland. During the recent opening up of the fauna of Somaliland, the North-Somali specimens, without any very detailed comparison, have been referred to M. saltiana, and the Central-Somali ones to M. kirki, these being indeed their nearest allies in each case; but now, on a careful examination of the whole genus, which has been helped by the further material recently collected by Capt. H. G. C. Swayne, and presented to the Museum by Mr. Sclater, I have come to the conclusion not only that these two are each different from the species to which they have been respectively referred, but also that there is a third Somali species, different again from the other two. I have therefore now to describe all three species as new. It happens most unfortunately that a good deal of the material before me has been collected by sportsmen who have not been trained as professional collectors, and who, in crossing the ranges of the three Somali species, have killed and brought home a number of skins and skulls, but the exact reference of these each to the other is not always quite certain. By care in the selection of type specimens, however, risk of error from this cause is minimized, much as it has added to my difficulties in working out the genus. The genus is readily divisible into two very distinct groups, of which M. saltiana and M. kirki are respectively typical; the 1 Madoqua, Ogilb. P. Z. S. 1836, p. 137. Type M. saltiana, Blainv. Neotragus, Gray et auct. plurim. (nee H. Sm. in Griff. An. King. iv. p. 269. Type N. -pygmmis, L.). The genus which has hitherto borne the name of Nanotragus, Sund. (1846), must therefore now be known by that of Neotragus. 2 Mr. True, in his paper on the Mammals of Kilima-njaro (P. U. S. Nat. Mus. xv. p. 477, 1892), has suggested that M. kirki and M. damarensis are the same, and uses for them the latter of these two names, unaccountably as it appears to me, kirki having been the first described. In m y opinion, however, M. damarensis is really distinct from M. kirkii, being considerably larger than the latter, as may be seen by the synopsis and measurements given below. |