The book of antelopes, vol. 2 (of 4)Sclater, Philip Lutley
Science
The book of antelopes, vol. 2 (of 4)
Sclater, Philip Lutley
Antelopes
As already pointed out, the Abyssinian representative of this group
differs slightly in structure from the forms of the Oribi of which we
have previously spoken. Its specific name would also indicate that
it is an inhabitant of a higher district, although Rüppell tells us
that when he sent the original specimen from Senaar in 1823 he had
given it in his Manuscript “a far more appropriate” one. Be that as
it may, Cretzschmar, who undertook the description of the vertebrates
transmitted by Rüppell to the Museum Senckenbergianum before the return
home of the latter, chose to call it “_montana_” and this term
cannot now, of course, be altered.
The original specimen of _Ourebia montana_ was obtained by Rüppell’s
collector Hey (after whom Hey’s Partridge, _Ammoperdix heyi_, was
subsequently named by Temminck) on the hills of Fazogloa on the Blue
Nile in 1823. Rüppell afterwards found many individuals of it on the
high plains of Woggera in the neighbourhood of Gondar and in the
valleys of the Kulla, where they resort to the grassy ravines and
thorny jungles. He remarks that only the male carries horns, but that
both sexes have a pair of inguinal glands, the openings of which are
concealed by long tufts of white hair. The female has four teats. He
also remarks that (as he communicated to the Zoological Society of
London, of which Rüppell was a Foreign Member, in 1836) the young males
of this Antelope occasionally possess the germs of a pair of canine
teeth, which are lost in the adult stage. This anomaly, however, has
also been noticed in other Ruminants.
Theodor von Heuglin met with this Antelope in several districts of
Central and West Abyssinia at elevations of from 6000 to 8000 feet
above the sea-level. He remarks that it prefers the rocky and bushy
parts of the steppes, and often cries out like a Roebuck when struck
by a shot. Dr. W. T. Blanford, F.R.S., found this Antelope rare in the
country traversed by the Abyssinian Expedition of 1867–68. He saw it
only two or three times, near Dolo and Harkhallet, north of Antalo, at
an elevation of about 7000 feet above the sea-level, where it inhabits
bushy ground or high grass. A buck shot by Mr. Blanford was 22½ inches
high at the shoulder, the mammæ were four in number, and the suborbital
and inguinal glands were well developed. We learn from Mr. W. L.
Sclater’s ‘Catalogue,’ that one of Mr. Blanford’s skins is now in the
Indian Museum, Calcutta.
Finally Dr. Giglioli includes the Abyssinian Oribi amongst the mammals
of which specimens have been transmitted to Italy from Shoa by the
Italian naturalists Boutourline and Traversi. Dr. Giglioli observes
that the sexes were alike in colour in these specimens, but that the
male was rather larger in size than the hornless female.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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