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Show 182 SIR V. BROOKE ON AFRICAN BUFFALOES. [May 20, The identity of the animal procured by Captain Clapperton in Central Africa with the smaller species of Buffalo met with by Riippell during the early part of this century, and more recently by Heuglin in Eastern Africa, has, however, long been suspected. A female at present existing in the Senckenbergian Museum at Frankfort stands labelled, and has, I believe, been always considered by Dr. Riippell a specimen of Bubalus brachyceros. Heuglin also, in his 'Antilopen und Biiffel' (1863, p. 25), enters with some care into a comparison of the two species of Buffalo met with by him in North-east Africa, the smaller of which he refers to the Bubalus brachyceros of Gray. In conclusion, I would say that although, in my opinion, the matter is far from being satisfactorily settled, yet I consider that the fact of the smaller species of Buffalo of Eastern Africa possessing the remarkably shaggy ears hitherto supposed to be characteristic of the Buffalo of Central and Equatorial Africa, taken in connexion with the significant fact that, as regards the character and inclination of the horns, intermediate examples completely bridge over the wide difference of characters exhibited by such specimens as the animals now alive at Berlin and the skull and horns we have this evening considered, goes far to strengthen the probability that the various specimens mentioned in this paper represent but one species- a species that in the course of its distribution over an area so extensive and diversified varies considerably, becoming more sharply definite in distinctive characters as it reaches the western limits of its range. Should this view be correct, it is remarkable that Bubalus caffer, possessing an equally wide geographical range, exhibits no analogous variations, specimens from Abyssinia being, so far as I am aware, indistinguishable from those from the Cape. Although the correctness of this conclusion appears to me in a high degree probable, I have considered it advisable, in the subjoined arrangement of the synonymy of Bubalus pumilus, to keep the references connected with the eastern and western races distinct. It will be easy to unite them should future research establish the specific unity of the two forms. It will be seen also that I have included Bubalus planiceros (Blyth, P. Z. S. 1863, p. 157, figs. 4 & 4 a) amongst the synonyms of the western race, as, although the horns in the College of Surgeons and in the King's-College Museum (upon which Mr. Blyth established the species) exhibit some peculiarities in common, I have been unable to perceive their specific value. At the same time it is with much diffidence that I venture to dissent from so high an authority in the Bovidae as Mr. Blyth. BUBALUS PUMILUS. Horns short, compressed from before backwards, separate at their roots, and spreading almost horizontally outwards until they become suddenly attenuated and rounded, their tips turning upwards and in some specimens backwards. Their anterior basal surfaces much flattened, and traversed by numerous transverse corrugations. |
