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Show 9 9 2 MR. R. LYDEKKER OX NEW [Dec. 11, 4. Descriptions of Two Mammals from the Ituri Forest. [With a Supplementary Note on the Buffalo of the Semliki district.] By 11. L yd e k k e r . [Received November 13,1906.1 (Plate LXX.*) From among a collection of mammal skins and skeletons obtained by Major Powell Cotton in the Ituri Forest and submitted to me, at his direction, by Rowland Ward Ltd., two specimens, representing as many species, appear worthy of being brought to the notice of the Society. Before proceeding to their description, I may take the opportunity of mentioning that Major Cotton has generously expressed his intention of presenting to the British Museum the type specimens of any small mammals in his collection which prove to be new, after they have been described. The first animal for notice is a Cat which I propose to call F el is c h r y so t i ir ix cot to x i, subsp. nov. (Plate LXX. fig. 1.) West Africa and its " hinterland''are, as Professor Paul Matschie has remarked f , the home of a very imperfectly known group of medium-sized and more or less uniformly-coloured Wild Cats, some of which display a tendency to a rufous and others to a grey phase. In this group are included Felis chrysothrix, F. celido- <jaster, and F. aurata of Temminck, F. neglecta of Gray, F. rutila of Waterhouse, and F. servalina of Ogilby, or Pucheran. Despite the imperfection of our knowledge of the group (which is poorly represented in the collection of the British Museum), one thing is quite certain, to wit, that these six names do not represent a corresponding number of species, whatever may be the case in the matter of races. Dr. Matschie (whatever may be his present views on the subject) exj)ressecl the opinion in the passage cited that there might be two recognisable forms-one, F. celidogaster, inhabiting the northern, and the other, F. chrysothrix, the southern districts of Guinea. The same view is adopted by Dr. Trouessart in the first edition of his " Catalogus," who regards F. neglecta (from the Gambia) as a synonym of celidogaster, and gives the range of the species as extending from the Gambia to Upper Guinea and Sierra Leone. In the second edition, apparently by an inadvertence, neglecta is, however, given as a synonym of chrysothrix. The range of F. chrysothrix (which in the first edition is taken to include aurata and rutila), on the other hand, is given as Lower Guinea, the Congo, Togo, Uganda, and possibly Angola. Of this species, servalina, from Sierra Leone, is regarded as a distinct race. * For explanation ot the Plate, see p. 096. f S.B. Ges. Naturforsch. Berlin, 1895, p. 196. |