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Show 984 ON THE SKIN OF AN ANTELOPE FROM LAKE MWERU. [Nov. 28, specimen is essentially of the Puku type, but broadly distinguished by the circumstance that while the skull itself is slightly shorter than that of an average-sized Puku skull in the British Museum, the horns are very much longer and stouter. In the Puku skull the length from the fronto-parietal suture to the tip of the nasals, measured in a straight line, is 8*5 inches, while in Sir E. Loder's specimen the corresponding dimension is but 8 inches. In the present specimen the horns have more ridges (17) and relatively shorter tips than any Puku horns I have seen ; they measure 20*3 inches along the front curve, 8*0 inches in basal circumference, and 8*1 inches between the tips. N o w the only horns assigned to the Puku with which I am acquainted that have anything like these dimensions are a pair obtained by Mr. Smitheman from the Luswesi Valley, in the neighbourhood of Lake Bangweolo, which lies S.S.E. of Lake Mweru; these horns measuring 20| inches along the curve, 8| in basal girth, and 1 2 | from tip to tip **. The wide interval between the tips I consider of no importance, but in other respects these horns agree very closely as regards measurements with Sir E. Loder's specimen. And they differ from the next specimen of Puku horns (19g in.) in M r . Eowland Ward's list2 by the much greater girth, the basal circumference of the latter being 6% inches. Accordingly, so far as horn-measurements alone are concerned, there would seem a probability that Mr. Smitheman's Lake Bangweolo skull may be specifically identical with Sir E . Loder's specimen. And if this be so, there arises the question whether both are not referable to G. smithemani. But if the evidence of the correspondent quoted above as to the Lechwi-like character of the horns of the Antelope presumed to be identical with the latter be reliable, this can hardly be the case. It must also be remembered that Lake Bangweolo is a considerable distance from Lake Mweru, so that each district (in spite of the fact that the true Puku and Lechwi extend from the Chobi-Zambesi Valley to Lake Mweru) may have its own particular species or race of Kob. The matter is one of great difficulty, and I may be accused of rashness in what I propose to do, which is to consider, for the present, Sir E. Loder's specimen as typifying a large-horned race of Puku to be known as Cobus vardoni loderi, until it can be either proved to be the same as G. smithemani or entitled to rank as a species by itself. Whether Mr. Smitheman's large Puku head from Lake _ Bangweolo belongs to the same form may be left an open question. 1 See Rowland Ward, ' Records of Big Game,' p. 189 (1899). 2 Loc. cit. |
