The book of antelopes, vol. 3 (of 4)Sclater, Philip Lutley
Science
The book of antelopes, vol. 3 (of 4)
Sclater, Philip Lutley
Antelopes
“The new Gazelle is to be found one day’s journey from Buroa
Wells, at an elevation of 3100 feet, to the Marehan country
(800 feet) (general course about S. by E.), and is there
more numerous than any other kind of game, excepting _G.
soemmerringi_; but the latter is found only in the open
country.
“Several times I observed the new Gazelle and G. walleri feeding
together, but I never saw more than eight in a bunch, and on
that occasion there was a male _G. soemmerringi_ with them.”
Mr. Clarke’s skulls of this Antelope, which were at the time without
head-skins, having been submitted to Thomas for examination by Messrs.
Rowland Ward and Co. (to whom Mr. Clarke had sent for preservation
his specimens of Antelopes obtained during this expedition), were, on
account of the shape of the horns, not unnaturally supposed to belong
to a new species of Reedbuck, and named “_Cervicapra clarkei_”--a
mistake which Thomas corrected in his later paper. Very shortly after
Mr. Clarke’s specimens had been sent to Europe Capt. Swayne purchased
of an Arab in the market at Berbera two pairs of horns of this Antelope
with the head-skins attached, and, seeing that they belonged to a new
species, sent them to Sclater. Sclater exhibited these specimens at a
meeting of the Zoological Society on March 17th, 1891, and pointed out
their Gazelline affinities, but finding that they belonged to the same
species as that just named by Thomas handed them over to the latter for
further examination.
In his paper upon this subject, which was read at the same meeting of
the Zoological Society, Thomas took the opportunity of describing the
whole series of Mr. Clarke’s Antelopes, which were eight in number.
For Clarke’s Gazelle, of which, with the aid of the head-skins and
the cleaned skulls, he had no difficulty in recognizing the true
affinities, he established the new generic term “_Ammodorcas_,”
and added a full description of this remarkable form, illustrated by
two plates, one of which, by the kind permission of the Zoological
Society, we are enabled to copy in the present work.
[Illustration: Fig. 83.
Head of the Dibatag, ♂.
(From P. Z. S. 1891, pl. xxi.)]
As already pointed out, it is evident that in its skull-characters
_Ammodorcas_ is intermediate between _Gazella_ and _Lithocranius_,
while in the shape of its horns it is absolutely different from all
other Gazelline genera.
Capt. Swayne, who has had the unequalled experience of seventeen visits
to Somaliland, writing in 1894, says:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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