The book of antelopes, vol. 4 (of 4)Sclater, Philip Lutley
Science
The book of antelopes, vol. 4 (of 4)
Sclater, Philip Lutley
Antelopes
Capt. Swayne has referred the Bushbuck of the Webbe to _T.
decula_, but this is certainly not correct, as, according to his
own description, it has “four or five white stripes, and sometimes as
many as thirty white spots.” In some skins from Sen Morettu, on the
Webbe, received from Capt. Swayne, now in the British Museum, there
are four or five distinct white stripes on the flanks, both in adult
and immature males, a few white spots on the hind-quarters, and a row
of white spots extending along each side of the body above the belly.
Although in some respects this form comes nearer to _T. scriptus_,
we think it better for the present to regard it as a subspecific form
of _T. roualeyni_, which, using Mr. Pocock’s subspecific term, we
call _T. roualeyni fasciatus_, and describe as follows:—
Height at withers about 26 inches. Head and legs of the same
colour and pattern as in _T. roualeyni_ and the other species of
this section of the genus. General colour a reddish yellow,
brighter on the hind-quarters, and distinctly blacker in the
dorsal region, where the hair assumes a dusky greyish-brown hue.
Body marked with four or five very distinct, mostly broad, white
stripes, a row of white spots running along above the belly and a
few white spots on the haunches. Hair on body shorter than in _T.
roualeyni_. No distinct collar of short hair round the base of the
neck, as in _T. roualeyni, T. sylvaticus_, and _T. scriptus_, the
entire neck being covered with a coating of short silky hairs of
the same length as those of the head, much shorter than those of
the body, and of a dusky, greyish-brown colour.
Young male redder in colour than the adult and equally strongly
marked with white.
The skull of a subadult male gives the following
measurements:—Basal length 8·25 inches, orbit to muzzle 4·6,
greatest width 3·75.
In the British Museum are a skull of the typical _T. roualeyni_
of the Limpopo, procured by Gordon Cumming, and a skin and skull from
the Zambesi obtained by Mr. Selous. There is also in the Museum a good
series of skins and skulls of this species from Zomba, Nyasaland, and
its vicinity, transmitted by Sir Harry Johnston and Mr. A. Sharpe, of
which we have already spoken, and from one of which our figures of the
adult skull (pp. 126, 127) have been taken. From British East Africa
the National Collection possesses the mounted adult male from Manda
Island presented by Sir John Kirk (and figured on our Plate XC., as
already mentioned), also a mounted female from the same source obtained
in British East Africa about one hundred miles inland at 6° S. lat.
Besides these there are Capt. Swayne’s specimens from the River Webbe
in the interior of Somaliland, already referred to.
We are not aware that any examples of this Bushbuck have been brought
to Europe alive.
_November_, 1899.
124. DELAMERE’S BUSHBUCK.
TRAGELAPHUS DELAMEREI, Pocock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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