The book of antelopes, vol. 1 (of 4)Sclater, Philip Lutley
Science
The book of antelopes, vol. 1 (of 4)
Sclater, Philip Lutley
Antelopes
Size medium. General colour reddish fawn, with distinct black patches
on face, shoulders, hips, and thighs. No dorsal dark line, and no dark
markings on feet. Tail barely reaching to hock, its terminal third with
a blackish crest along the top.
Skull heavily built; its basal length (♂) 14·8 inches, greatest breadth
5·7, muzzle to eye 10·8.
Horns thick, rising abruptly upwards and backwards from the skull, and
evenly curving backwards, diverging as they go; their extreme tips
showing a tendency to be recurved upwards. Good male horns are of a
length over the curves of 21 inches.
This and the two next species are very closely allied in all their
essential characters; but their colour-differences appear to be
sufficiently constant in their respective localities to entitle them to
specific recognition.
_Hab._ Senegambia and the interior of West Africa.
The Antelope described by Buffon, in his ‘Histoire Naturelle,’ as
the “Koba”[7] or “Grande Vache Brune” of Senegal, has proved a great
stumbling-block to naturalists. This has been largely due to the fact
that Buffon appended to his description of the Koba the figure of some
horns from a totally different source, and clearly of a different
animal, which, indeed, we believe to have been simply those of the
Pallah (_Æpyceros melampus_). Not noticing this confusion, many
good authorities have identified the Koba with the present species,
while others have been inclined to refer it, owing to the figure of
the horns erroneously given by Buffon, to the Bontebok of the Cape and
to other Antelopes. The description by itself is quite unrecognizable,
and under the circumstances, as the matter must ever remain uncertain,
the best course seems to be to ignore Buffon’s animal altogether,
and to reject the specific names _koba_ and _senegalensis_
that have been founded upon it; although there can be no doubt that
the Korrigum, as now described, is the _Antilope_ and _Damalis
senegalensis_ of Children, Hamilton Smith, Gray, and many other
authors.
This being decided, the proper name to adopt for this Antelope will be
_korrigum_ of Ogilby. Ogilby proposed this name in a communication
made to the Zoological Society of London in 1836, basing it on the head
and horns brought home from Bornou by Denham and Clapperton on their
return from their celebrated expedition into Central Africa in 1822–24.
This skull is still in the collection of the British Museum.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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