The book of antelopes, vol. 1 (of 4)Sclater, Philip Lutley
Science
The book of antelopes, vol. 1 (of 4)
Sclater, Philip Lutley
Antelopes
_Cephalophus niger_, =Gray=, Ann. Mag. N. H. (1) xviii. p. 165
(1846); =id.= List Ost. B.M. p. 57 (1847); =id.= Knowsl. Men.
p. 10, pl. vii. (animal) (1850); =id.= P. Z. S. 1850, p. 123;
=id.= Cat. Ung. B. M. p. 84 (1852); =Gerr.= Cat. Bones Mamm. B.
M. p. 236 (1862); =Fitz.= SB. Wien, lix. pt. 1, p. 166 (1869);
=Gray=, P. Z. S. 1871, p. 597; =id.= Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 27
(1872); =id.= Hand-l. Rum. p. 96 (1873); =Jent.= Cat. Ost. Leyd.
Mus. (Mus. Pays-Bas, ix.) p. 132 (1887); =id.= N. L. M. x. p. 20
(1887) (Liberia); =Büttikofer=, Reisebild. Liberia, ii. p. 376
(1890); =Jent.= Cat. Mamm. Leyd. Mus. (Mus. Pays-Bas, xi.) p.
162 (1892); =Thos.= P. Z. S. 1892, p. 425; =Matach.= Mittheil.
deutsch. Schutzgebiet, vi. p. 81 (1893); =Lyd.= Horns and Hoofs,
p. 212 (1893).
_Antilope pluto_, =Temm.= Esq. Zool. Guin. pp. 194,214 (1853);
=Wagn.= Schr. Säug., Suppl. v. p. 422 (1855).
VERNACULAR NAME:--_Bush-Goat_ of Liberian Negroes (_Büttikofer_).
Size medium. Colour of body uniform dark smoky brown or black, becoming
darker on the rump and limbs; paler on the throat and chest. Face
fulvous, darkening into rich rufous on the crest; the centre of the
forehead sometimes brown or black. Ears black haired externally, rufous
internally. Tail black above, but with a whitish terminal tuft.
Skull long and narrow. Forehead swollen; anteorbital fossæ rather
shallow; mesial notch of palate about ¼ inch in advance of lateral ones.
Horns, in male, “straight, rough at their base, smooth and pointed at
their extremity, 3–3½ inches in length” (_Temminck_, _l.c._):
in female short, barely an inch in length, blunt and rounded, not
expanded basally.
Dimensions:--(♂). Approximate height at withers 18 inches, length of
hind foot 8·3, of ear 2·8.
Skull (♀): basal length (c.) 6·8, greatest breadth 3·3, anterior edge
of orbit to muzzle 4·2.
_Hab._ West Coast of Africa, from Liberia to the Gold Coast.
The well-known field-naturalist Pel, one of the many excellent
collectors employed from time to time by the Leyden Museum, was the
discoverer of this Duiker, of which he transmitted specimens home
from the Guinea coast about the year 1843. Shortly afterwards the
British Museum acquired one of Pel’s specimens from Leyden under the
MS. name “_Antilope niger_.” This was described by Gray in 1846
as the type of a new species, “The Black Bush-buck (_Cephalophus
niger_).” Gray added to his description that there was then living
in the Knowsley Menagerie a “Bush-buck” which was probably of the same
species; and on turning to the pictures in the ‘Gleanings from the
Derby Menagerie’ we find what is doubtless the animal referred to,
figured upon a plate (vii. fig. 2) which is initialed by Waterhouse
Hawkins as having been drawn in 1846. So far as we know, this is the
only individual of this Antelope that has ever been brought to Europe
alive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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