The book of antelopes, vol. 3 (of 4)Sclater, Philip Lutley
Science
The book of antelopes, vol. 3 (of 4)
Sclater, Philip Lutley
Antelopes
Size rather greater than in _G. spekei_; height at withers
about 25 inches. Colour brownish fawn, rather more rufous than _G.
spekei_. Light lateral band distinct; dark band rufous brown,
similar to that of the back but rather darker in tone, not blackish.
Pygal band distinct, brown. Centre of face dark fawn, without either
the black spot or the pale swollen cushion characteristic of _G.
spekei_. Dark and light cheek-bands short and indistinct. Knee-tufts
dark brown.
Skull narrower than in _G. spekei_, and with long narrow nasals,
which articulate broadly with the premaxillæ. Basal length in an old
male 6·87 inches, greatest breadth 3·25, muzzle to orbit 3·75.
Horns more evenly divergent, much straighter and less curved backwards
than in _G. spekei_, but otherwise similar. In length they attain
to about 11 or 12 inches.
_Female._ Like the male, but the horns much smoother and
slenderer, and only about three-fourths the length.
_Hab._ Maritime plains of Northern Somaliland.
As we have already mentioned in our account of the last species, the
late Mr. F. L. James and his party, who visited Somaliland in 1884,
appear to have been the first to bring to England examples of the two
allied Gazelles of Somaliland. Unfortunately, however, though perhaps
not unnaturally, Sclater, who assisted Mr. E. Lort Phillips in the
determination of the Mammals obtained during that expedition, referred
the coast-land specimens to _Gazella spekei_, and described
the examples from the high plateau as belonging to a new species,
_Gazella naso_. About two years later, however, this error was
corrected by Herr H. F. Kohl, of the Natural History Museum of Vienna,
who, in an article upon new and rare Antelopes collected by Herr L.
Menges in Somaliland, among which examples of both these Gazelles were
comprised, rightly referred the upland species to _Gazella spekei_
of Blyth and gave to the lowland species, then still unnamed, the
title of _Gazella pelzelni_, after the late August von Pelzeln,
a well-known naturalist, who was at that time Custos of the Imperial
Museum of Natural History.
Thomas, in his article on the Antelopes collected in Somaliland by Mr.
T. W. H. Clarke, published in the Zoological Society’s ‘Proceedings’
for 1891, was the first to make this matter perfectly clear, and to
establish the name _Gazella pelzelni_ as the permanent designation
of the coast-land Gazelle of Somaliland. Since that date the
distinctions between the two allied species have become well recognized
and understood, and numerous examples of both species have been
obtained by the naturalists and sportsmen who have recently visited
that country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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