The book of antelopes, vol. 4 (of 4)Sclater, Philip Lutley
Science
The book of antelopes, vol. 4 (of 4)
Sclater, Philip Lutley
Antelopes
Count Teleki, as we are informed by Herr v. Höhnel in his narrative of
the first expedition to Lake Rudolf, met with the Eland on the Likipia
plateau, north of Mount Kenya, where, according to a letter addressed
by v. Höhnel to Sclater, they encountered a herd of about 170. But
we are not aware of any evidence of its being found further north in
British East Africa or in any part of Somaliland. Here, therefore,
we appear to have reached its furthest limits in this direction, but
further west, in the Valley of the Nile, there is good evidence of the
existence of this form of Antelope in much higher latitudes.
The famous explorer Baron von Heuglin was the first traveller who
recorded the existence of an Eland in the districts of the Upper Nile,
although v. Pruyssenaer (as Heuglin states) had previously recognized
its occurrence on the Bahr el-Abiad and Bahr-el-Sobat. But Heuglin,
having obtained a pair of Eland’s horns from the Upper White Nile,
about 7° N. lat., referred them, on account of their large size, to
a new species, “_Boselaphus gigas_.” He gives a figure of these
horns and states that they measure 35 inches in length, and show a
distance of 32 inches between the two points. We have thought it
advisable to reproduce Heuglin’s figure of this remarkable pair of
horns (see fig. 117, p. 208). In a subsequent work (‘Reise in das Geb.
d. Weiss. Nil’) Heuglin adds that his _Taurotragus gigas_ is found
in pairs and singly in the forests of the Djur River and amongst the
Arol negros.
[Illustration:
Fig. 117
Horns of _Taurotragus oryx gigas_.
(Heuglin, Ant. u. Büff. N.O.-Afr. pl. i. fig. 2.)
]
The well-known traveller Schweinfurth, in his ’Im Herzen von Afrika,’
also alludes more than once to the existence of the Eland on the upper
confluents of the White Nile. In the first place, he met with it in
Bongoland, where he says that it resorts to the drier slopes of the
hills during the rains, and descends to the valleys in the winter
months. In the second volume of his narrative, Schweinfurth mentions
it again, and gives two figures of the horns of what he calls the
Central-African Eland, of two very different forms. Schweinfurth
states that the skin is plainly striped, and that this is certainly
no mark of youth, because he has seen very old examples which had
about fifteen narrow parallel stripes, about a finger in breadth, on
both sides. It is quite evident, therefore, that the Eland of this
part of Africa belongs to the striped form. It may be identical with
_T. o. livingstonii_, but, as Heuglin has given it a name, we
will allow him the benefit of the doubt for the present, and will call
this northern striped form _Taurotragus oryx gigas_ until further
investigations have been made.
[Illustration:
Fig. 118.
Abnormal horns of female Eland.
_a_, front view; _b_, side view; _c_, transverse section
at spot marked =x=.
(P.Z.S. 1889, p. 74.)
]
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