| OCR Text |
Show 812 MR. A. E. PEASE ON THE [Nov. 17 The best and strongest horns I know are a pair I purchased from an Arab who had come to Biskra via Ouargla (see fig. 1, p. 811). They measure 3 4 | inches in length, 6| in. round the base; 17| in. between the tips, and 12| in. between the horns at the lower outward curve. The Chambas who have firearms shoot a great many of these Antelopes, and assure m e that when there is a wind sufficiently strong to make the grass, broom (Genista monospermal), and bushes wave, it is very easy to get them. They told m e that they could easily take m e where they were " like flies," and where I could get as many as ever I washed. The Touaregs hunt the Begra el Ouash or " Tamita" with Sloughia (Greyhounds-the Saharian Greyhound is called a " sloughi" by the Arabs). The sloughia bring it quickly to bay, and the men go in and spear it. Algeria and the Northern Sahara yield three distinct kinds of Gazelles (I know nothing of Gazella rufina). Old works which allude to these species are most confusing, and it is often impossible from their descriptions and names to know to which their remarks refer. Shaw's accounts, so far as they go, of the wdld animals of the Barbary States are comparatively clear. In alluding to the Gazelles, he says:- " Besides the common Gazelle or Antelope" (i. e. Gazella dorcas) " (which is well known in Europe) this Country likewise produceth another Species of the same Shape and Colour, though of the Bigness of our Roe-Buck and with Horns sometimes of two foot long. This the Africans call Lidmee (1. e. the Adml or Gazella cuvieri), and may, I presume, be the Strepsiceros and Addace of the Antients . . ." It is usual to regard the Dorcas as the " common Gazelle," but I have no doubt whatever that the Rhime (G. loderi) is by far the most numerous species in North Africa, and to be found over a very much more extended area than the Dorcas. The description given in the ' Proceedings' of this Society (1894, pp. 467-473) of the Algerian Gazelles is so complete that I shall confine myself to a very brief notice of the three species that I a m familiar with. (1) The Dorcas (Gazella dorcas), called by the Arabs generally " Bhozal," but when exactness is required " Hemar." They regard a large Dorcas as one of a separate race, and he is called Bou Khrouma (Large Throat), but the Bou Khrouma and Hemar are both alike the Dorcas Gazelle. The French discriminate between tbe Dorcas and the Rhime (G. loderi) by terming the former " Gazelle des Plaines," and the latter " Gazelle des Sables." It is with great respect and diffidence that I object to the Dorcas being described (see P. Z. S. 1894, p. 467) as "the common Gazelle of the Algerian Sahara generally," for the Dorcas is not met with in the Sahara proper, so far as I can learn, and in the Eastern Algerian Sahara at least is not to be found south of lat. 33°. The Dorcas in the Eastern Province and in Tunisia is the common Gazelle of the plains immediately south of the Aures |
