The book of antelopes, vol. 3 (of 4)Sclater, Philip Lutley
Science
The book of antelopes, vol. 3 (of 4)
Sclater, Philip Lutley
Antelopes
VERNACULAR NAMES:--_Arab_ or _Harab_ at Massowa, _Bus-Adu_ in
Danakil, _Om-Sabah_ in Arabic (_Heuglin_); _Aoul_ of Somalis
(_Swayne_).
Size large, height at withers 35½ inches in an old male of the Somali
subspecies. General colour very pale fawn, and very uniform everywhere,
as there are neither light nor dark lateral bands nor any pygal bands.
Central facial band black or blackish fulvous, contrasting markedly
with the white lateral facial streaks. Dark facial streaks also
black, but very narrow. Sides of muzzle black, continuous with the
central facial band. Back of ears whitish, margined and tipped with
black. White of rump very broad and extended, projecting far into the
body-colour, which it broadly shuts off from the tail. The latter is
white basally, black tufted terminally. Knee-brushes present, whitish
or fawn.
Basal length of skull 8·85 inches, greatest breadth 4·2, muzzle to
orbit 5·4.
Horns long, nearly circular in section, heavily ringed. In the typical
subspecies they are but little divergent for their basal half, but then
curve widely outwards above, their tips being again abruptly hooked
inwards so as to point almost directly towards each other. In the
Somali subspecies their length is greater and their divergence is quite
even, not increasing above, so that their upper portions are not nearly
so widely separated; their tips also hook rather forwards, and not so
directly inwards.
_Female_ similar to the male, but the horns much thinner and less
rough, though almost as long as those of the male. In both of the
subspecies their curvature is closely similar to that found in their
respective males.
_Hab._ Coastland of Red Sea from Suakin south to Tajurah
(subspecies _typica_); Northern Somaliland (subspecies
_berberana_).
This fine Gazelle was one of the many discoveries made in North-east
Africa by the great traveller and naturalist Edouard Rüppell, and
was first described and figured by Cretzschmar in the ‘Atlas’ which
illustrated the zoological portion of Rüppell’s ‘Reise.’ The species
was dedicated to Ritter Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring, on the occasion
of that savant attaining the fiftieth year of his Doctorate--an event
which was celebrated by the Senckenbergian Naturalists’ Society of
Frankfort-on-the-Main on the 7th of April, 1828. The original specimens
were procured by Rüppell on the eastern slope of the Abyssinian
coast-range, and were deposited along with all his other collections
in the Senckenbergian Museum. In a _résumé_ of his knowledge
of the East-African Antelopes contained in a subsequent work on the
Vertebrates of Abyssinia, Rüppell tells us that he only met with this
species in the bush-clad valleys of the Abyssinian coast, but that it
was said to occur also on the large island of Dahalak off Massowah. It
was generally observed in small families, which, however, sometimes
congregated into larger herds.
[Illustration: Fig. 81.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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