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Show 1873.] SIR V. BROOKE ON AFRICAN BUFFALOES. 481 Peters since the commencement of this paper, and requested him to procure for m e a drawing of the head of the male Buffalo as he now appears. The result was the beautiful etchings (Plate XLII. figs. 1 & 2) which I have the pleasure of laying before you. It may be seen by a comparison of this drawing with that of a very fine specimen of the horns of Bubalus caffer (fig. 4, p. 480) that, in their flattened compressed character, and in their general position on the head, the horns of the Buffaloes living at Berlin differ essentially from that species, and that in these particulars they resemble precisely a specimen in the British Museum (fig. 5), brought by TO Head of Bubalus pumilus, J (race b); specimen brought by Baker from Abyssinia. Sir Samuel Baker from North-eastern Africa. There can therefore, I think, be no doubt of the propriety of referring the animals living at Berlin, along with Sir Samuel's specimen, to the Bubalus caffer, var. cequinoctialis of Blyth (P. Z. S. 1866, p. 371), especially as that gentleman in his paper alludes to Sir Samuel's specimen under that name. But further, when we compare the great shaggy ears of the East-African specimens (depicted in Herr Metzel's drawings) with these characters as exhibited in the Central-African specimens figured by Blyth (P. Z. S. 1863, p. 158) and observe in the coloured drawing of the female Bos pumilus from Sierra Leone (which is still preserved in the Society's collection), in addition to the large hairy ears, the same tawny tint which is shown, though more feebly, in the East- African male, a strong suspicion arises that we have here to deal with one widely distributed species. PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1873, No. XXXI. 31 |
