Size slightly greater than in _G. dorcas_; height at withers 23–24
inches. Body pale brownish fawn, the light lateral band but little
paler than the back, then dark or dull blackish, not sharply defined.
Central facial band brownish fawn; top of muzzle, over nasal bones,
with a distinct blackish patch, in front of which there is a peculiar
swollen and corrugated cushion of skin raised up above the level of the
face, and extensible at the pleasure of the animal. Dark cheek-band
narrow, indistinct, the light band above it broad and extending to
the muzzle. Ears long, narrow, pointed, their backs whitish fawn.
Knee-tufts present, brownish fawn. Pygal band very indistinct.

Skull with short broad nasals, the premaxillæ not or barely touching
their outer corners. Basal length in an old male 6·5 inches, greatest
breadth 3·35, muzzle to orbit 3·6.

Horns but slightly divergent, evenly and strongly curved backwards for
three-fourths their length, their tips gently recurved upwards.

_Female._ Like the male, but the horns slender, little ridged,
less curved, about three-fourths the length of those of the male.

   _Hab._ Interior Plateau of Somaliland.

There can be no doubt that the two Gazelles which inhabit the maritime
plain and the high inland plateau of Somaliland respectively, although
they are closely allied, and have been confused together by some
writers, belong to distinct species, distinguishable by well-marked
characters. The Gazelle of the interior plateau, which we treat
of first, when compared with that of the coast-land is at once
recognizable by the generally browner colour, the darker lateral band,
the black nose-spot, and above all by the wrinkled and elevated nose of
the adult, which is not met with in the sister species.

Speke’s Gazelle was first discovered by the energetic African
explorer, whose name it appropriately bears, during his expedition
to Harar in the summer of 1854 in company with the late Capt. Sir
Richard Burton[10]. Speke, who attended to the natural history of
the expedition, forwarded the collections made upon this occasion
to Blyth, at that time curator of the Asiatic Society’s Museum at
Calcutta, and in the zenith of his zoological work. In his report upon
the collection, which was published in the twenty-fourth volume of
the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ Blyth did not venture
to bestow a new name on this Gazelle, although he gave an accurate
description of it, and added a note (obtained from Burton) calling
special attention to “the elevation of loose replicated skin upon the
nose,” so that there can be no doubt as to which of the two allied
species Speke’s specimens (which are still in the Calcutta Museum[11])
belong.

In the reprint of Blyth’s ‘Report,’ which was edited by Speke in
1860 after his return to this country, this Gazelle was erroneously
referred to _G. cuvieri_ of Ogilby. In 1883, however, Blyth, who
had discovered that this was a mistake, proposed the name _Gazella
spekei_ for this species in his ‘Catalogue of the Mammals of the
Asiatic Society’s Museum,’ and this appellation has been generally
adopted for it ever since.

When the late Sir Victor Brooke wrote his Monograph of the Gazelles in
1873 Speke’s Gazelle was hardly known in this country, and Brooke was
only acquainted with it from photographs of the type specimens in the
Calcutta Museum. But since that date Somaliland has been fully opened
to British travellers, and the numerous explorers and sportsmen who
have visited that much-hunted country have brought back good sets of
specimens both of Speke’s and of Pelzeln’s Gazelle, and made us well
acquainted with the ranges and other peculiarities of these two species.

One of the first British travellers who visited Somaliland, and
made the acquaintance of Speke’s Gazelle, was the late Mr. F. L.
James, who proceeded there on a shooting-expedition in January 1884,
accompanied by his brother and Mr. E. Lort Phillips[12]. Mr. Lort
Phillips read some notes on the Antelopes obtained on this occasion
before the Zoological Society in December 1885, and in alluding to this
Gazelle called it the “_Flabby-nosed Gazelle_,” to which term Sclater
attached a footnote stating that it was “probably of a new species,”
but required further examination. This examination Sclater bestowed
upon Mr. Lort Phillips’s specimens shortly afterwards (see P. Z. S.
1886, p. 504), and came to the correct conclusion that the so-called
Flabby-nosed Gazelle was quite distinct from the species of the coast
land. He unfortunately did not perceive that it was the species of the
high plateau and not that of the coast land, which had already been
named _Gazella spekei_ by Blyth, and therefore gave it a new name,
_Gazella naso_, under which appellation it will be found described and
its characteristic head figured in Sclater’s article in the Zoological
Society’s ‘Proceedings’ for 1886. But, as Thomas has subsequently shown
(P. Z. S. 1891, p. 210), there can be no doubt that _Gazella naso_ is
merely a synonym of _Gazella spekei_.

Another well-known author, who must not fail to be quoted in any
reference to the game animals of Somaliland, is Capt. H. G. C. Swayne,
R.E. Capt. Swayne has made no less than seventeen trips to that
attractive country, and is probably better acquainted with its larger
mammals than any other living individual. In his excellent narrative
of his adventures[13], Capt. Swayne has given us some capital notes on
Speke’s Gazelle and its near ally Pelzeln’s Gazelle, both of which are
known to the natives by the same name “_Dhero_.”

  [Illustration: Fig. 62.

  Head of adult male Speke’s Gazelle.

  (Brit. Mus.)]

Capt. Swayne calls the former Antelope the “_Ogo_, or Plateau Gazelle,”
and the latter the “_Guban_, or Lowland Gazelle,” and describes the
peculiarities of the present species as follows:--

   “The Plateau Gazelle, which has the ridges of loose skin
   over the nose well developed, inhabits the elevated country,
   commencing about thirty-five miles inland. It is found south
   of Gólis, in Ogo and in the Haud, as well as in Ogo-Gudan, the
   country near Hargeisa where Guban rises gradually into Ogo.

   “I have shot large numbers of Gazelles for food at various
   times, and have always noticed that the plateau variety has a
   much thicker and longer coat than the other. This is possibly
   the result of natural selection, as the high plains of the Ogo
   and the Haud, where it lives, are subject to sweeping cold
   winds, and the nights are very cold indeed. The altitude of
   these plains inhabited by the Plateau Gazelle is from three
   thousand to over six thousand feet, but doubtless they go
   much lower towards Ogádén. The great steppe of Gólis, with
   its prolongations east and west, which rises some forty miles
   inland, and separates Guban, the low coast country, from Ogo,
   the high interior country, forms the natural line of demarcation
   between these two Gazelles.”

  [Illustration: Fig. 63.

  Head of adult female Speke’s Gazelle.

  (Mr. F. Gillett, F.Z.S.)]

A still more recent explorer of Somaliland, Mr. A. E. Pease, M.P.,
F.Z.S., has most kindly favoured us with some excellent notes on
Speke’s Gazelle and its sister species, which we cannot do better than
reproduce. Mr. Pease has also sent us along with his MS. remarks a
sketch-map of the northern part of Somaliland, in which the ranges of
these two species are accurately shown.

He writes as follows:--

   “Speke’s Gazelle is called ‘Dhero’ by the Somalis, who do not
   distinguish it by name from _Gazella pelzelni_. It is a
   ‘Dhero,’ just as the other, and yet there is no Somali shikari
   or any other observer who cannot discriminate at a glance
   between these two very distinct species--distinct in colour,
   size, horns, and habitat, whilst the peculiar nose, covered with
   soft pliable folds of loose skin, of the _G. spekei_ is
   alone sufficient to mark it as a species apart.

   “The Speke’s or Plateau Gazelle has been termed the Mountain
   Gazelle by some writers; but it is not strictly a mountain
   Gazelle, but one that frequents the higher plains and low
   foot-hills north and south of the Golis. But with its
   distribution I will deal later.

   “In colour the Speke’s Gazelles are much darker than Pelzeln’s
   Gazelles, the predominating colour in life being a rich
   strong burnt-sienna buff, distinctly darker over the back.
   The side-stripes are very dark brown, strongly marked, and
   maintaining their depth of colour to the edge of the white under
   the ribs and belly. The tail is a dark reddish brown, and the
   colour on the quarters towards the tail is of a deeper shade.
   The coat, though fine in texture, is very long for a Gazelle,
   being sometimes fully two inches long on the withers, and the
   stern is heavily feathered with long white hair. Altogether it
   is one of the most beautifully coloured of all the Gazelles.
   The head is also strongly marked, the deep dark brown patch
   on the nose and the tear-mark sprinkled with dark hairs are
   very distinctive. The enlargement of the nose is covered with
   three or four folds of loose pliable skin. The horns are more
   curved back and forward towards the tips than those of Pelzeln’s
   Gazelle, and on the average do not reach to quite the same
   length as in that species. Twelve inches along the curve would
   be an abnormally long horn for _G. spekei_, whilst this
   measurement is not uncommon in Pelzeln’s Gazelle. The female is
   very slightly lighter in colour, and has weak horns, reaching
   to about 9 inches in old ones, with slight indications of the
   annulations, which are deep and strong in the male.

   “This Gazelle I have observed in large numbers on both sides of
   the Golis range. I have seen it in bands numbering from fifteen
   to twenty on the plateaux behind (S. of) Gan Libah and Dunanoof.
   In the Gadabursi country, on the northern limits of the Haud,
   west of Lija Uri, I have seen them frequently in small bands
   of from five to eight, and herds of this size may be said to
   be the rule in the zone north of the Golis Range and south of
   the Maritime Plain. I cannot call to mind having seen them much
   further south than the grass plains of Toyo, but there I have
   observed them mixed up with the Aoul or Soemmerring’s Gazelle.

   “I should put down the height of this Gazelle at about 24
   inches, and its weight, when living, at about 40 pounds.”

So far as we know, but one specimen of Speke’s Gazelle has as yet
reached this country alive. This was a young male, presented to the
Zoological Society’s Menagerie in November last year by Dr. L. de
Gébert, who had obtained it at Djibutil, the French port of Abyssinia.
Unfortunately it did not live long in captivity, but after its death
Sclater, with Mr. F. E. Beddard’s kind assistance, was able to examine
the specimen more closely. It exhibited a slight protuberance on the
nose, as shown in the figure (fig. 64), which by the kindness of the
Zoological Society we are enabled to reproduce on the present occasion.
Underneath the skin of the nose was a slight cavity, which was easily
inflated into a protuberance by blowing air into the nostrils. But
dissection, which was carried out by Mr. Beddard, revealed no trace of
any glandular structure.

  [Illustration: Fig. 64.

  Head of young male Speke’s Gazelle.

  (P. Z. S. 1897, p. 920.)]

The collection of the British Museum contains a good mounted example
of this Gazelle (procured from Herr Menges, and originally obtained
from Gerbatir in Somaliland), from which the coloured figure (Plate
LXI.) has been prepared by Mr. Smit. There is likewise in the Museum
a good series of skins and skulls from different places in Somaliland
collected and presented by Mr. T. W. H. Clarke, Capt. H. G. C. Swayne,
R.E., Col. Arthur Paget, and Mr. Ford G. Barclay. From one of these our
figure (p. 128) of a good adult head of this Gazelle has been prepared
by Mr. Smit; while that of the female (p. 129) has been drawn from
a mounted head kindly lent to us for that purpose by Mr. Frederick
Gillett, F.Z.S.

    _May,_ 1898.

    THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL. LXII.

    _J. Smit lith._    _Hanhart imp._

  Pelzeln’s Gazelle.

  GAZELLA PELZELNI.

  _Published by R. H. Porter._]

                        92. PELZELN’S GAZELLE.

                        GAZELLA PELZELNI, KOHL.

                             [PLATE LXII.]

   _Gazella spekei_, =Scl.= P. Z. S. 1884, p. 540; =Lort Phillips=,
   P. Z. S. 1885, p. 931 (_nec_ Blyth).

   _Gazella pelzelni_, =Kohl=, SB. zool.-bot. Ges. Wien, 1886,
   p. 4; =id.= Ann. Mus. Wien, i. p. 76, pls. iii. & iv. fig. 1
   (animal & skull) (1886); =Thos.= P. Z. S. 1891, p. 211; =Scl.=
   P. Z. S. 1892, pp. 100 & 118; =Swayne=, P. Z. S. 1892, p. 306;
   =Ward=, Horn Meas. (1) p. 113 (1892), (2) p. 155 (1896); =Lyd.=
   Horns and Hoofs, p. 238 (1893); =Swayne=, Somaliland, p. 316
   (fig., head) (1895); =Hoyos=, Aulihan, p. 178, pl. x. fig. 1
   (1895); =Elliot=, Publ. Chicago Mus. Zool. i. p. 119 (1897).

   VERNACULAR NAME:--_Dhero_ of Somalis (in common with the last
   species) (_Swayne_).

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.

Capt. Swayne, in his well-known work on Somaliland and its wild animals
(from which, by the kind permission of Messrs. Rowland Ward & Co.,
the publishers, we have been allowed to borrow illustrations of the
heads of both sexes of this Gazelle), tells us that the “short-coated,
light-coloured Lowland Gazelle” carries rather longer horns than those
of the Plateau Gazelle (_Gazella spekei_), which are “shorter,
thicker, more curved, and better annulated.” “The habits of both,” he
continues, “are nearly alike; they go in moderate-sized herds of from
three to ten, and resort mostly to stony or sandy undulating ground
or ravines thinly dotted over with mimosas. Both species are fond of
salt and do not require water. It is hard to understand what they can
pick up to eat in the wretched ground which they frequent. They have a
curiosity which amounts almost to impudence, but are wonderfully on
the alert, and hard to shoot, seeming to know perfectly well the range
of a rifle, and presenting but a very small target.”

Capt. R. Light, writing to Sclater in 1892, tells us that when he
visited Somaliland in 1891 he found this Gazelle between Berbera and
Zeila, close down by the sea: “they were often observed feeding side by
side with camels and flocks of sheep and goats. When startled they move
off the ground in a quick trot, taking bounds over any obstacles and
finally breaking into a gallop.”

  [Illustration: Fig. 65.

  Head of Pelzeln’s Gazelle, ♂.]

  [Illustration: Fig. 65_a_.

  Skull of Pelzeln’s Gazelle, ♀.]

  (From Swayne’s ‘Somaliland,’ p. 317.)

Mr. Pease, who has kindly supplied us with notes on this Gazelle as
well as on the preceding species, writes that Pelzeln’s Gazelle is
essentially the species of the maritime plain and could be seen within
shot of the town of Bulhar when he was there in 1896, and within a
mile or so of Berbera. “In life it appears of a light rich yellow-buff
in colour, with the usual Gazelline marks rather faintly indicated.
Its coat is short and fine, and its horns are straighter and longer
than those of _G. spekei_. The horns of the female are weak and
almost smooth, like those of Speke’s Gazelle.” “Within fifty miles of
the sea-shore,” he continues, “this Gazelle is exceedingly numerous in
suitable places. Half-a-dozen herds may be often seen at a time, but I
have seldom observed more than twenty in a single band. In size _G.
pelzelni_ is larger than _G. spekei_, the average height being
about 25 inches, while the weight of the carcase is usually a little
over 40 lbs.”

Mr. D. G. Elliot, who made a successful expedition to Somaliland in
1896, for the purpose of obtaining specimens for the Field Columbian
Museum of Chicago, gives us the following account of his experiences
with the present species:--

   “This is the Gazelle of the lowlands and is not often seen much
   beyond Laferug on the road to Hargeisa, where the following
   species begins to make its appearance. It is the larger animal
   of the two, and they resemble each other very much in their
   habits.

   “Pelzeln’s Gazelle frequents dry and stony places, covered
   with low bushes, and it is difficult to see where or how it
   can obtain sufficient nourishment from the barren, forbidding
   districts it inhabits. It goes in small troops of from two or
   three to nearly a dozen individuals. I think eleven was the
   greatest number I ever saw together at one time. As a rule,
   it is not a wild creature and readily permits an approach
   sufficiently near to ensure a fatal shot, but of course
   when much hunted becomes wary. The males were often seen by
   themselves, and then it was not difficult to stalk them. Their
   horns are almost straight and annulated nearly to the tips. The
   female also carries horns, much straighter and much more slender
   than those of the male. There is considerable variation in the
   coloring of individuals and I hardly know what causes it. The
   typical style has a broad conspicuous chestnut band running
   lengthwise along the body just above the white of the belly. But
   some individuals, evidently of equal age, killed practically
   at the same time and in the same condition of coat, were
   entirely without the distinguishing mark. It may be possibly an
   exhibition of individual variation, for these specimens were
   not confined to any especial locality. I do not think, however,
   it was in any way an indication of age, for fully adult animals
   were without the stripe, neither was this peculiarity confined
   to either sex.”

The British Museum contains a good male specimen of Pelzeln’s Gazelle,
mounted from a skin obtained by Herr Menges near Berbera in Somaliland.
Mr. Smit’s figures of this species (Plate LXII.), which represent the
male in two positions, have been prepared from it. The Museum also
contains two skins from the plains of Berbera, collected by Capt.
Swayne and originally sent home to Sclater.

    _May,_ 1898.

    THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL. LXIII.

    _J. Smit lith._      _Hanhart imp._

  Loder’s Gazelle.

  GAZELLA LEPTOCEROS.

  _Published by R. H. Porter._]

                         93. LODER’S GAZELLE.

                     GAZELLA LEPTOCEROS (F. CUV.).

                            [PLATE LXIII.]

   _Antilope leptoceros_, =Geoffr. St.-Hil. et F. Cuv.= H. N. Mamm.
   (fol.) pls. 473, 474, livr. 72 (1842) (Sennaar?); =Wagn.= Schr.
   Säug. Suppl. iv. p. 422 (1844), v. p. 407 (1855); =Schinz=, Syn.
   Mamm. ii. p. 445 (1845); =id.= Mon. Antil. p. 34, pl. 38 (1848);
   =Sund.= Pecora, K. Vet.-Ak. Handl. 1845, p. 269 (1847); =id.=
   Hornschuch’s Transl., Arch. Skand. Beitr. ii. p. 265; Reprint,
   p. 85 (1848); =Gieb.= Säug. p. 309 (1853); =Heugl.= Reise
   N.O.-Afr. ii. p. 100, cum tab. (1877).

   _Gazella leptoceros_, =Temm.= Esq. Zool. Guin. p. 193 (1853);
   =Brooke=, P. Z. S. 1873, p. 543; =Lyd.= Horns and Hoofs, p. 234
   (1893).

   _Gazella dorcas_, var. 4, =Gray=, Cat. Ung. B. M. p. 57 (1852).

   _Leptoceros abuharab_ et _L. cuvieri_, =Fitz.= SB. Wien, lix.
   pt. 1, p. 160 (1869).

   _Gazella loderi_, =Thos.= Ann. Mag. N. H. (6) xiii. p. 452
   (1894) (Algeria); =id.= P. Z. S. 1894, p. 470, pl. xxxii.
   (animal); =Loder=, P. Z. S. 1894, p. 473 (habits); =Scl.=
   P. Z. S. 1895, p. 522 (Egypt); =Bramley=, P. Z. S. 1895, p.
   863 (Egypt); =Scl.= P. Z. S. 1896, p. 780 (Viv. Soc. Zool.);
   =Pease=, P. Z. S. 1896, p. 813 (Algeria); =Whitaker=, P. Z. S.
   1896, p. 816 (Tunis); =Ward=, Horn Meas. (2) p. 169 (1896).

   VERNACULAR NAMES:--_Abu el harabat_ or _Abu el haráb_ in Arabic
   (_Heuglin_); _Reem_ of Arabs in Algeria (_Loder_); _Ghazal
   abiad_ (White Gazelle) of Arabs in Tunis and Egypt (_Whitaker &
   Bramley_).

Height of male at withers about 25 inches. General colour very pale
sandy fawn, the Gazelline markings little defined. Central facial
band and darker cheek-bands sandy, not rufous, and but little
contrasting with the light facial streaks. Light lateral bands scarcely
perceptible, and the darker ones below them only pale sandy with a
tinge of brownish, as are the pygal bands, neither being much darker
than the general dorsal colour. Ears long, narrow, pointed, pale
whitish buff externally. Tail sandy at base, darkening terminally to
brownish black. Front of fore limbs sandy, of hind limbs whitish;
knee-brushes distinct, but little darker than the general colour. Hoofs
variable in shape, those of specimens from the sandy regions of the
Sahara much elongated, while in other regions they are of the usual
shape.

Skull of normal proportions; premaxillæ broadly articulating with
nasals. Basal length in an old male 6·45 inches, greatest breadth 3·3,
muzzle to orbit 3·6.

Horns of male long, about twice the length of the skull, slender,
closely and heavily ringed nearly to the tip. They are very variable as
to their exact curvature, but are ordinarily rather straighter than in
other species, curving but slightly backwards; they are near together
basally, diverging above, sometimes very widely, so as to make them
resemble divergent horns of _G. granti_ in miniature.

_Female._ Similar to the male, but the horns, although nearly
equally long, are much slenderer and even less curved than in the male.

   _Hab._ Sandy tracts of the interior of Algeria, Tunisia,
   and Western Egypt, south to Nubia and Sennaar.

The great folio work of Geoffrey St.-Hilaire and Frédéric Cuvier
entitled ‘Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères,’ which was issued in
livraisons from 1824 to 1842, contains a long series of coloured
figures of mammals, mostly taken from examples living in the well-known
Menagerie attached to the Jardin des Plantes. Amongst these in
the seventy-second livraison, published in 1842, were the first
descriptions and figures given of both sexes of the present Gazelle,
from examples stated to have been brought from Sennaar by Burton.
They had lived in the Menagerie, we are told, two years, and had bred
a young one, which resembled its parents in most particulars. The
appropriate scientific name “_leptoceros_,” from the long thin
horns, had been given to this species, we are informed, by Georges
Cuvier, and was adopted by the authors of the work referred to, who,
however, called it at the head of their article, after their usual
fashion, only by the French name “_Antilope à longues cornes_.”

Very little more information was acquired concerning this Gazelle for
many years. Most of the systematists were entirely unacquainted with
it, and could only quote the original descriptions. Sundevall and Gray
considered it to be merely a variety of _Gazella dorcas_. Rüppell,
during his extensive travels in East Africa, seems never to have come
across it, and does not mention it in any of his publications.

The first author after its describers to recognize its existence
was Heuglin, who in 1877, in the second volume of his ‘Reise in
Nordost-Afrika,’ writes of this species, the name of which he had
previously misapplied to another Gazelle, and gives a coloured figure
of its head and figures of two pairs of its horns. Heuglin met with
_G. leptoceros_ in the Libyan desert of Egypt, near the Natron
Lakes and the Fayoum, where he states its Arabic name is “Abu el haráb.”

Sir Victor Brooke had never seen specimens of this Gazelle, and in his
‘Monograph’ relies mainly upon Heuglin’s description.

So matters remained until recent years, when examples of this Gazelle,
or of a very closely allied form, turned up unexpectedly from a new
quarter.

Loche, Lataste, and other authorities on the zoology of Algeria had
mentioned the existence far in the interior of that country of an
Antelope called “El Rim,” and examples of the horns of a problematical
Gazelle called “El Reem” had been brought to England from the shops at
Biskra. In 1894 an enthusiastic sportsman and naturalist, Sir Edmund
Loder, F.Z.S., resolved to make a serious attempt to discover this
mysterious animal, and proceeded to Algeria for that purpose. We cannot
do better than transcribe for our readers Sir Edmund’s own account of
the results of this successful expedition, which was read before the
Zoological Society of London on June 5th, 1894:--

   “Seventeen years ago (in 1877) I bought in the bazaar at Biskra
   several pairs of Gazelle horns. They obviously belonged to three
   species: _Gazella dorcas_, called by the Arabs ‘Rezal’; _Gazella
   cuvieri_, which they call ‘Admi’; and a third called ‘Reem,’
   which I was not able to identify with any described species. All
   these horns were on frontal bones only. It is very rarely that
   the Arabs bring in any whole skulls or skins for sale, and I
   have never seen anything but frontlets of the ‘Reem.’

   “In 1891 and again in 1893 I went out to Algeria for the purpose
   of hunting Mouflon (_Ovis tragelaphus_).

   “In 1877 I had been prevented from going after them except for a
   few hours at a time. On these later trips I was more successful
   and secured some fine male Mouflon, a female of the large
   Mountain Gazelle (_Gazella cuvieri_), and a few specimens
   of _Gazella dorcas_.

   “At Biskra I again found horns of the Reem, but got no
   information about it except that it was reported to live in the
   sand. I heard a French name for it for the first time, ‘Gazelle
   des sables.’

   “As my friend Mr. Alfred Pease was spending a second winter at
   Biskra and had made the acquaintance of several native hunters,
   I requested him to try what he could do to find out the habitat
   of the Reem. About Christmas-time last year he wrote to me that
   he believed he had reliable information that the Reem was to be
   found in the desert near Chegga, only about 50 kilometres south
   of Biskra on the caravan-route to Touggourt.

   “We made arrangements for a camping trip, and I left England on
   February 1st, and started from Biskra with Mr. and Mrs. Alfred
   Pease on February 8th of this year.

   “After two days’ marching we got to Chegga and made inquiries
   respecting the Reem. No one seemed to know anything about the
   animal except one Arab, who said that if we went on farther
   south we should come to a place called Ain Gebberah, where there
   were a few Reem, but if we went on still farther to Hamraia we
   should find the Reem in quantities.

   “We therefore travelled on for two or three more days until we
   came to Hamraia, but on making inquiries about the Reem the
   answers were very unsatisfactory. We determined, however, before
   giving up the search, to stay here a day to hunt and see what
   game there was in this part of the desert.

   “In the early morning of the next day Pease started off from
   camp with an Arab in one direction, while I went off in the
   other. By the evening we had covered a considerable extent of
   country and had used our glasses from every available rise in
   the ground. We saw several small herds of _Gazella dorcas_,
   but no tracks even of any other Gazelle. We did not seem to be
   any nearer to obtaining a Reem than when we started from Biskra.

   “At night, when we got back to camp, we were told that a negro
   camel-herd had been there during the day, and had said that
   we were not at all in the right country for Reem, that he was
   well acquainted with the animal and knew where it was to be
   found. He came into camp again the next morning and told us
   that the Reem had long slender hoofs and tender feet, lived
   only in the soft sand, and would be unable to run on hard stony
   desert such as that round Hamraia. He said he could take us to
   the Reem country, in rolling sand-hills, but we should not be
   able to camp very near as there was no water for our horses and
   pack-animals.

   “We agreed to go with him, and he led us a day’s march still
   farther south towards the Oued Souf, and then turned off the
   caravan-track to the east and chose a camp in the sand about an
   hour and a half from water. (Almost all the water in the desert
   is brackish and bad, but the water here was positively nasty.)

   “The next morning we left camp very early on horseback, with the
   negro on foot and an Arab hunter riding a mule. The negro led
   the way at a tremendous pace, keeping up a good trot in the soft
   sand and sometimes running fast for a couple of miles without a
   stop across the dry arm of a chott, keeping us at a hand-gallop
   most of the time.

   “After two hours and a half the negro pointed out the first
   track of the Reem, which is quite easily to be distinguished
   from that of _Gazella dorcas_ from its much greater length.
   We now unsaddled the horses, tied them up, and went off in two
   parties to hunt for Reem. The negro led the way in front of me,
   going slowly and with great caution, as the Reem is extremely
   wary and against the nearly white sand can detect a moving
   object a long way off. We had not walked very far when we saw
   the head of a Reem looking over the top of a sand-ridge at
   about 300 yards distance. We stayed for a long time perfectly
   still behind a tuft of tall alpha grass, till at last the head
   disappeared. As soon as it was out of sight we ran as hard as
   we could across the bare sand to the top of the next ridge, and
   again sheltered ourselves behind a tuft of alpha. When we looked
   out cautiously we saw that the Reem had moved on to another
   sand-hill more to our left, and was again showing just the top
   of his head over it. We had, however, considerably reduced the
   distance. Again he stopped perfectly still for a long time and
   then turned and moved off. We ran to another ridge, and I caught
   sight of him trotting to the top of the sand-hill beyond at
   about 150 yards. At the top he turned and I fired at once and
   got him. A lucky shot! as the distance was long for so small an
   animal. It was a good male, with horns 13 inches long. I have
   not seen any much longer than these.

   “After taking the Reem back to the place where we had left the
   horses, we started off again, and during the day saw several
   small lots containing both males and females (4, 5, and 2), but
   did not get a chance of another shot. Pease also saw a few.

   “We hunted the sand-hills for two more days; on the third day
   our negro guide took us much farther from camp, running before
   us with surprising speed and endurance for three and a half
   hours before we halted and tied up our horses. In the evening,
   after walking all day in a hot sun and on soft sand, he showed
   himself still untired and ready to run at the same pace back
   again to camp. This remarkable man said that he had lived for
   seven years in the desert without sleeping in a house or tent,
   and had hardly tasted water, meat, or bread; during the whole
   of that time his food consisted of dates and camel’s milk, and
   he attributed his strength to this diet. The long distance of
   our camp from the sand-hills where the Reem is found was a great
   hindrance, as we could not hunt for them at the time they were
   feeding. By the time we got to the ground they were already
   lying down for the day, generally on the top of the sand-ridges,
   and keeping a watchful look-out. We saw several small herds each
   day, but neither of us ever got another chance of a shot.

   “We were lucky in having calm weather, as a sand-storm in that
   country is a very serious matter. The air gets as thick as
   during a bad London fog and one cannot see even a few yards
   ahead, making it quite impossible to regain camp, all tracks
   being blotted out in a few minutes by the wind. Our experience
   of sand-storms was limited to _one_ day, our last day
   in the desert, luckily for us well outside the region of the
   sand-hills, when leaving our caravan behind we rode in 50
   kilometres to Biskra in the teeth of a cutting wind filled with
   dust and sand, an extremely painful experience; but we were in
   no danger of losing our way as we were then on the broad track
   worn by the caravans travelling between Biskra and Touggourt.

   “The Reem is remarkable for its light and uniform coloration,
   the ordinary Gazellemarkings being hardly noticeable. The long
   slender hoofs are also very peculiar, reminding one of those
   of _Tragelaphus spekii_, which lives in the swamps on the
   borders of lakes and rivers.

   “It is quite certain that the Reem can never drink, as there is
   no water in this country at all, except in the comparatively
   deep wells dug by the natives.

   “The following measurements of the male Reem were taken directly
   after it was killed:--Height at shoulder 2 ft. 4 in.; girth at
   brisket 2 ft. 1 in.; length of horns 13 in. It weighed, after
   being brought into camp (without entrails), 34 lb. These are
   about the measurements and weight of _Gazella dorcas_.

   “For comparison I give the measurements of a good male
   _Gazella cuvieri_ which I killed in the mountains a few
   weeks after the Reem:--Height at shoulder 2 ft. 7 in.; girth at
   withers 2 ft. 8½ in.; weight without entrails 58 lb.

   “As to the distribution of these species, I may say that
   _Gazella cuvieri_ is found entirely in the mountains, never
   down in the true desert. It climbs like a Chamois to the tops of
   the highest mountains in the rockiest ground, and is often found
   in the juniper-forests on the mountain-slopes. These are also
   the haunts of the Mouflon, the two animals being constantly seen
   on the same ground.

   “_Gazella dorcas_ is found all over the hard stony desert
   and also on the foot-hills, so that it sometimes overlaps the
   range of the Admi. I have seen a few in the sand-hills, the true
   country of the Reem; but I believe that still farther south
   it is not found, its place being taken entirely by the Reem.
   I quite believe the statement of the natives that the Reem is
   never found off the soft sand.”

On his return home Sir Edmund Loder submitted his series of specimens
of the Gazelles obtained during this and his former journeys in Algeria
to Thomas, who, at the same meeting of the Zoological Society at which
Sir Edmund’s notes were read, proposed to refer his examples of the
“Reem” to a new species to be called _Gazella loderi_, after the
energetic traveller who first made known its existence in Algeria.

Mr. Pease, in his notes on the Antelopes of Eastern Algeria published
in the Zoological Society’s ‘Proceedings’ for 1896, gives us the
following additional information:--

   “The Rhime (_Gazella loderi_), Arab ‘El Rhime,’ Tamahaq
   ‘Hankut,’ is the common Gazelle of the Sahara. Enormous numbers
   are killed by the Arabs in the neighbourhood of Rhadamis and
   their skins dressed and dyed with a dye made from the rind of
   pomegranates and exported from Rhadamis. They are to be found
   throughout the region of the great Ergs and everywhere in the
   Sahara sands where there is vegetation sufficient to support
   them. The only places where they are to be met with, north of El
   Oued Souf, are to the south-west of Bou Chaama and near Sef el
   Menadi. A number of their horns are always on sale at Biskra and
   sometimes the skins. The male horns of the Rhime sometimes bear
   so close a resemblance to those of the Admi (_Gazella cuvieri_)
   that they are often sold and bought as such.”

Mr. Pease also points out that in the “Rhime” the horns in their main
outline form a long evenly tapering V, whilst in the Admi the horns are
more inclined to be parallel, and towards the points usually take an
inward and forward turn, as shown in the diagrams (Fig. 66, _a_,
_b_) which by the kindness of the Zoological Society we are able
to reproduce. The annulations, also, Mr. Pease states, are deeper and
more marked in the Admi, and stop more abruptly towards the points than
in the “Rhime.”

  [Illustration: Fig. 66.

  Diagram of horns of Rhime (_a_) and Admi (_b_).

  (P. Z. S. 1896, p. 814.)]

This Gazelle occurs also in Southern Tunis, as we learn from Mr. J.
S. Whitaker, F.Z.S., who has written the following notes on it in the
Zoological Society’s ‘Proceedings’:--

   “This pale desert Gazelle is known to the Tunisian Arabs by
   the name of ‘Ghazel abied’ or ‘Resêl abied,’ meaning the White
   Gazelle, its Algerian name ‘Reem’ or ‘Rim’ being apparently
   unknown in Tunis.

   “It seems to be a true desert species, never occurring out of
   the sand-dune country, where it replaces _G. dorcas_;
   and while the home of the latter species is the semi-desert
   country, with its vast stony plains, covered with scanty scrub
   vegetation, the habitat of _G. loderi_ is undoubtedly the
   more arid region of sand wastes further south.

   “Herr Spatz, who has resided for several years in the south of
   Tunis, and is well acquainted with this Gazelle, informs me
   that it is common in the inland country of the extreme south
   of the Regency, being first met with at about 25 to 30 miles
   south of the Chott Djerid. In the districts where it occurs it
   is plentiful, and is generally to be found in small herds; but
   owing to its very pale colour, which harmonizes so well with
   that of the desert surroundings, it is not easily distinguished
   at a distance, and being, moreover, extremely shy and wary, a
   near approach is not often possible. The nomad Arabs, however,
   who are nearly all sportsmen, kill a good many, and every year
   some 500 to 600 pairs of horns of this species are brought by
   the caravans coming from the interior to Gabes, where they find
   a ready sale among the French soldiery.

   “Herr Spatz confirms what Sir Edmund Loder says of this species
   never drinking, and, as to its food, says it subsists on the
   leaves and berries of the few desert plants to be found in the
   sand wastes. The female of _G. loderi_, according to Spatz,
   often has _two_ young ones at a birth, differing in this respect
   from _G. dorcas_, which seems to have but one.

   “So good a description of _G. loderi_ has been given by Mr.
   Thomas (P. Z. S. 1894, p. 470), that I can add nothing thereto,
   except it be merely to say that the coat of this Gazelle is
   extremely fine and short-haired, and that in the specimens which
   I have the knee-brushes are so slightly developed as to be
   scarcely noticeable or worthy of the name.”

In the spring of 1895 Sclater was in Egypt, and convinced himself
that besides _G. dorcas_, of which there were many specimens in
the Zoological Gardens at Gizeh, there were examples of both sexes of
another species belonging to the group of _G. leptoceros_ and
_G. cuvieri_, stated to have been obtained from the Arabs of the
Western Desert (_cf._ P. Z. S. 1895, p. 400). On receipt in London
of a skin and skull of this Gazelle subsequently sent to him by Mr.
Jennings-Bramley, Sclater, after comparing it with typical specimens of
_Gazella loderi_ in the British Museum, pronounced them to be of
the same species. Mr. Jennings-Bramley also supplied Sclater with some
excellent notes on the mode of capture of this Gazelle by the Arabs
of the Western Desert of Egypt, from which we extract the following
passages:--

   “On the 27th of June, 1895, I started from the Pyramids in
   order, if possible, to catch some living specimens of Loder’s
   Gazelle (_Gazella loderi_), known to the Arabs as ‘Rasal
   Abiad’ (the White Gazelle), which the shikaries whom I took with
   me reported to be found in the desert at some thirty or forty
   miles distant from Cairo.

   “Leaving at 4 P.M. on the 27th, we started, taking a
   south-easterly direction. We travelled till 12 that night, and
   at 4 next morning resumed our march. Soon after the sun had
   risen, one of the shikaries, pointing to the ground, showed
   what he made out to be the spoor, evidently but lately made, of
   a fine male Loder’s Gazelle. This, being larger than that of
   the Dorcas Gazelle, is very easily recognizable; the bluntness
   of the hoofs in the case of Loder’s Gazelle shows a marked
   difference. About 12 o’clock one of the camel-men called out
   that a Gazelle could be seen ahead, but the many heaps of white
   stones, scattered all over the desert, are so deceiving at a
   little distance that both shikaries shook their heads.

   “The camel-man, however, in this case proved to be correct,
   as we soon noticed the Gazelle walking leisurely away. It
   disappeared behind a mound of sand, where it must have remained,
   for, on reaching the place about half an hour later, we were
   surprised to come suddenly on the Gazelle, now only some 200
   yards off. It was a fine female, very white in colour. Not
   wishing to disturb any others that might be near, I did not
   fire. We found, however, that it was alone. At 12 o’clock or
   thereabouts we came upon the skirt of the plateau, from which
   the Fayoum can be seen, and here the shikaries decided to turn
   back, as they said we had passed the ‘White Gazelle ground’; so,
   after returning about two miles, we set up the tents and waited
   for the evening, the sun being so hot that it was impossible to
   continue our search.

   “During the afternoon the two shikaries constructed traps, which
   we set in the evening.

   “The Gazelle trap, except the small hemp-platted rope, is
   made entirely from the date-palm. Taking the long leaves, the
   shikarie first constructs by platting them together a deep ring,
   about 3 inches in diameter and about 4 inches deep: it should,
   in fact, fit well into a golf-hole and make its walls secure. He
   now takes an old stalk from which the dates have been picked,
   and separating about twenty of the fibres which compose it,
   and run its whole length, he twists them into a rude bracelet
   about three inches in diameter. Then taking three more fibres,
   in place of twine, he binds the ring securely; the ring or
   bracelet has then a form much resembling a diminutive ‘Ringold’
   ring. The shikarie now breaks off the points of the date-thorns
   until he has about twenty-five of them 2 inches in length;
   these he pushes through the fibrous sides of the ring until all
   the points meet in the centre, so that when finished this ring
   has much the appearance of a small sieve. All the thorn-points
   overlap slightly in the centre of the ring. This ring, holding
   all the thorns, the deep ring of platted leaves, and a soft
   thick hemp rope, made by the Arab himself, by the ordinary
   three-plat from raw hemp (this rope, being soft, not only binds
   itself more securely to the Gazelle, but does not cut the skin
   when drawn tight), attached to a date-stick about a yard in
   length, are all the implements that an Arab requires to catch a
   Gazelle.

   “Starting in the evening for the lower ground, which is studded
   with small bushes (for when pitching the tents we purposely
   kept at a good distance from the feeding-ground), we soon found
   spoor, but none very promising; a buck and two does had been
   there two nights before. A small desert plant, much resembling
   our English Red Cranesbill (_Geranium sanguineum_), was
   pointed out to me by the Arabs as a favourite food of the
   Gazelles. Finding a spot where the spoor led to one of these
   plants, and the plant evidently having been nibbled at, we
   decided to put a trap near it. The Arab sat down and made a
   hole, using his deep ring to keep its sandy walls intact, so
   that he now had a hole resembling exactly in size and depth a
   golf-hole with basket-work sides, within four or five inches of
   the plant.

   “Taking now the thorny ring he places it on the hole, which it
   should exactly cap. He now powders up some camel-dung and drops
   it carefully over the thorns in the ring, which being close
   together hold it up, so that soon nothing can be seen of the
   thorns. The use of the dried dung is, to hold up the sand which
   hides the trap. The hemp rope, now made into a slip-noose, is
   put round the top ring, and the stick to which it is attached
   buried in the sand. The whole is now carefully covered with
   sand. One of the shikaries laid his traps so successfully that
   it was almost impossible to find one again unless a Gazelle was
   caught in it. The marks like those of a Gazelle made by the
   fingers over the trap add to the deception. It is curious to
   remark that a Gazelle will rarely walk over an impression left
   by either beast or man in the sand.

   “When the Gazelle comes in the evening to feed, its foot slips
   through the top ring in the centre where the thorns meet, and so
   to the bottom of the hole. The top ring is now fixed round the
   Gazelle’s leg, at the height of the depth of the hole, the spiky
   thorns entering the skin. This ring also holds up the hemp rope,
   which the Gazelle, in endeavouring to kick off the thorny ring
   that pricks it, draws tight, generally over the knee.

   “The Gazelle starts off, dragging after it the date-stick,
   attached to the rope. The swinging stick makes it impossible for
   the animal to get away at any pace, as, twisting round one leg
   or the other, it throws the Gazelle to the ground continually.

   “The spoor of the trapped Gazelle with the marks of the swinging
   stick are easily found, and the animal tracked down until in
   sight, when a trained greyhound will soon catch and hold it
   until his master comes up.

   “During November and December the Gazelles are caught when fawns
   by trained hounds, and this is the simplest method; but it can
   only be practised during two months, as it takes a very good dog
   to catch a Gazelle when more than this age.

   “During the eight days I was in the desert, though unsuccessful
   in trapping any, I saw several very fine specimens of Loder’s
   Gazelle.”

In August 1896 a fine adult living female of this Gazelle was received
by the Society as a present from Mr. A. R. Birdwood, of Cairo--no
doubt obtained in the same locality as that explored by Mr. Bramley.
Mr. Birdwood wrote subsequently to Sclater concerning this Gazelle as
follows:--

   “I am pleased that you have found the Gazelle a real acquisition
   to your Gardens. I succeeded in securing you a very fine male
   the other day, but it died almost at once from the effects of
   the trap used by the Bedouins!

   “With regard to the statement that this Gazelle does not drink
   water, my theory is that it may be true that water is not always
   obtainable where it is, and that in that case it makes shift
   with the succulent desert plants that are to be found even
   in the most arid, seemingly waterless, and barren plains! Of
   these desert plants, I have collected more than sixty varieties
   from the limestone hills of Mariout, in the arid stretches
   running from Wady Natron to Wady Siwa, and in the still more
   unfavourable ground of the dunes that intersect the road running
   from Fayoum to the oases of Farafseh and Dakleh. All have the
   same characteristic succulence, and one, known to the Bedouins
   as ‘broth of the Gazelle’ (which looks more like a bundle of dry
   thorns than anything else), is most delightfully aromatic (when
   snapped off) as well as succulent! These seeming deserts after a
   rain are plains of verdure, but in a few months return to their
   primitive wildness.”

So far as we know, besides the original specimens of _G.
leptoceros_ received at Paris in 1884, the female presented to the
Zoological Society by Mr. Birdwood is the only example of this Gazelle
that has reached the Menageries of Europe alive. By the kindness of
the Zoological Society we are able to give a copy of Mr. Smit’s drawing
of the head of this animal.

  [Illustration: Fig. 67.

  Front view of head of a female Loder’s Gazelle.

  (P.Z.S. 1896, p. 781.)]

But the identity of the Egyptian _Gazella leptoceros_ with the
Algerian _G. loderi_ is perhaps not yet exactly certain, although
we have combined the English name of the latter with the scientific
name of the former.

On comparing specimens from Tunis and Algeria with others from Egypt,
the size of the former is slightly greater, the markings are even less
defined than in Egyptian examples, the horns are less closely ringed,
the nasal bones are markedly longer, the nasal opening is both longer
and broader, and the premaxillæ articulate less broadly with the sides
of the nasal bones.

An old male is 26 inches in height at the withers, and the
skull-measurements of the type are:--Basal length 6·75 inches, greatest
breadth 3·35, muzzle to orbit 4.

These differences seem to be quite constant, so far as we have
materials for comparison, and we therefore think that as the Algerian
form has had a name given to it, it may be provisionally retained as a
subspecies, at least until these characters are shown to be variable.
The accompanying figure, for the use of which we are indebted to the
kindness of the Zoological Society, gives a side view of the skull and
horns of the Algerian form.

  [Illustration: Fig. 68.

  Skull of _Gazella leptoceros loderi_, ♂.

  (P.Z.S. 1894, p. 471.)]

Our representations of this Gazelle (Plate LXIII.) have been prepared
by Mr. Smit--that of the male (front figure) from a mounted specimen in
the British Museum obtained by Mr. J. I. S. Whitaker in the Tunisian
Sahara, and presented by him in 1894; that of the female from the
example from Egypt living in the Zoological Society’s Gardens.

In the British Museum are likewise the typical skin and horns of
_Gazella loderi_ obtained by Sir Edmund Loder in the desert about a
hundred miles south of Biskra, some frontlets and horns from Biskra,
presented by Mr. Rowland Ward, and a skin and skull of a female from
Tunis, presented by Mr. J. I. S. Whitaker along with the male now
mounted. The example of _Gazella leptoceros typica_ sent to Sclater by
Mr. Birdwood is also now in the National Collection. We have also to
thank Dr. J. Anderson, F.Z.S., for the loan of a skin and skull of an
old male of the Egyptian form of this Gazelle obtained near the Natron
Lakes in Egypt.

    _May,_ 1898.

    THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL. LXIV.

    _Wolf del J Smit lith_      _Hanhart imp._

  The Isabella Gazelle.

  GAZELLA ISABELLA.

  _Published by R.H. Porter._]

                       94. THE ISABELLA GAZELLE.

                        GAZELLA ISABELLA, GRAY.

                             [PLATE LXIV.]

   _Antilope dorcas_, =Licht.= Darst. Säug. pl. v. (1827)?

   _Gazella dorcas_, =Blanf.= Zool. Abyss, p. 261, pl. i. fig. 1
   (1870).

   _Gazella isabella_, =Gray=, Ann. Mag. N. H. (1) xviii. pp. 214 &
   231 (1846); =id.= Knowsl. Men. p. 4 (1850); =id.= P. Z. S. 1850,
   p. 113; =id.= Cat. Ung. B. M. p. 57 (1852); =Gerr.= Cat. Bones
   Mamm. B. M. p. 233 (1862); =Fitz. & Heugl.= SB. Wien, liv. pt.
   1, p. 591 (1866); =Fitz.= SB. Wien, lix. pt. 1, p. 158 (1869);
   =Gray=, Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 38 (1872); =id.= Hand-l. Rum. B. M.
   p. 107 (1873); =Brooke=, P. Z. S. 1873, p. 539; =Huet=, Bull.
   Soc. Acclim. 1887, p. 65; =W. Scl.= Cat. Mamm. Calc. Mus. ii.
   p. 157 (1891); =Ward=, Horn Meas. (1) p. 116 (1892), (2) p. 158
   (1896).

   _Antilope isidis_, =Sund.= Pecora, K. Vet.-Ak. Handl. 1845, p.
   267 (1847); id. Hornschuch’s Transl., Arch. Skand. Beitr. ii. p.
   263; Reprint, p. 83 (1848).

Height at withers about 25 inches. General colour pale fawn, rather
variable in tone, sometimes tending towards brownish. Light lateral
band very indistinct; dark band generally fawn like the back,
occasionally darker, almost smoky brown. Central dark facial band deep
rufous, a darker nasal patch often developing in old individuals. Light
facial streak well defined, white. Pygal band almost obsolete, little
or not darker than the back.

Skull rather variable in the shapes of the nasal bones and premaxillæ.
That of a male measures 6·55 inches in basal length, greatest breadth
3·1, muzzle to orbit 3·65.

Horns of male, as well figured by Blanford under the name of _G.
dorcas_, evenly diverging and curving backwards for four-fifths
their length, their tips strongly bent inwards and upwards nearly or
quite to a right angle.

_Female._ Similar to the male, but the horns slender, scarcely
ridged, their tips curved inwards rather than upwards; in length nearly
equal to those of the male.

   _Hab._ Coast-lands of the Red Sea from Suakin to Massoua,
   and over the interior to Bogos, Barca, and Taka.

It is possible that the Gazelles described and figured by Lichtenstein
in the first part of his ‘Darstellung der Thiere’ as “_Antilope
dorcas_,” which were stated to have been procured by Hemprich and
Ehrenberg in Sennaar, may have belonged to the present species.
Sundevall certainly considered them to be referable to a species
distinct from the true _Gazella dorcas_, and proposed to call them
“_isidis_,” from Lichtenstein’s vernacular name “Isis Antelope.” But
this identification is by no means certain, and, at all events, the
name “_isabella_,” under which this Gazelle was shortly diagnosed
by the late Dr. Gray in 1846, will take precedence of Sundevall’s
appellation. Gray’s description is very short, and does not allude
to the shape of the horns, which are one of the most characteristic
features of this species. His type specimen is still in the British
Museum. It is an immature male, mounted, and stated to have been
received from “Abyssinia,” though Gray in later papers gives “Egypt”
and “Cordofan” as the localities for his _G. isabella_.

Heuglin, in his various memoirs on the Antelopes of N.E. Africa, did
not keep _G. isabella_ separate from _G. dorcas_, and united their
localities. Sir Victor Brooke, in his monograph of the Gazelles,
though he divides them and says that “amongst the smaller Gazelles no
two species could produce two more dissimilar animals than typical
specimens of _G. dorcas_ and _G. isabella_,” states his conviction that
“every intermediate degree between them will be found represented in
intermediate localities.” It is indeed true that _G. isabella_ is a
very inconstant species and requires further careful study.

There can be no doubt that Dr. Blanford’s _Gazella dorcas_, in his
volume on the ‘Geology and Zoology of the Abyssinian Expedition,’ is
what we here call _G. isabella_. The figure of its horns (_op. cit._
plate i. fig. 1) shows the characteristic twist inwards at the upper
end. Moreover, a skull of a male (from Zoulla) and a skull and skin of
a female (from Amba), obtained by him during the expedition, and now
in the British Museum, are evidently referable here. Mr. W. L. Sclater
has also catalogued four heads in the Calcutta Museum, obtained by Mr.
Blanford on the same occasion, as _G. Isabella_. Mr. Blanford gives us
the following field-notes on the present species:--

   “So far as my observation extends, neither this nor Bennett’s
   Gazelle are ever seen in large flocks, like the animals of the
   Springbok group. Usually both are seen solitary or in parties
   of from two to five together, inhabiting thin bushes, generally
   on broken ground. They feed much upon the leaves of bushes.
   The male has a peculiar habit when surprised of standing still
   and uttering a short sharp cry. Like most Antelopes, they keep
   much to the neighbourhood of some particular spot. After long
   observation, I am convinced that Bennett’s Gazelle never drinks,
   and all that I could ascertain of the present Gazelle leads to
   the same conclusion in its case.”

In our efforts to obtain further information about the Isabella
Gazelle, we did not fail to apply to the officers of the Anglo-Egyptian
garrison at Suakin for a set of specimens of it for the National
Collection. In reply to our requests Major Sparkes, Surgeon-Capt.
Fleming, and Lieut. Carleton were kind enough to send to the British
Museum five examples of it; but we cannot say that the examination
of these specimens has enabled us altogether to understand this very
difficult species. Of the five examples from that locality, three have
and two have not a black nasal patch, while the dark lateral band in
some is fairly distinct and in others almost obsolete. It is thus
evident that these characters, of systematic importance elsewhere, are
not, in _G. isabella_, even of local constancy.

Among the Gazelles registered in the Zoological Society’s ‘List of
Animals’ (1896) as received during the past twelve years there have
been several which, doubtless, should have been referred to the present
species, but have been entered under _Gazella dorcas_. Amongst these
may be specified an example presented by Commander W. Crofton, R.N.,
in July 1890 (specimen _e_), a female presented by Col. Holled Smith,
C.B., in July 1892 (specimen _g_), and a pair (_h_, _i_) received on
deposit in May 1894.

After the arrival of these specimens from Suakin, Mr. A. Thomson, the
Head-Keeper, called Sclater’s attention to their differences from the
ordinary _G. dorcas_. They were of a more reddish colour, and had a
broad and somewhat distinct side-stripe and a blackish nasal spot, in
addition to other smaller differences.

Besides the specimens of this Gazelle in the British Museum which we
have already referred to, there is a mounted male from the Anseba
River, formerly in Sir Victor Brooke’s collection, and presented to
the Museum by Sir Douglas Brooke. We believe that our coloured figure
(Plate LXIV.), which was prepared by Mr. Smit under Sir Victor’s
superintendence, was taken from this specimen.

    _May,_ 1898.

  [Illustration: Fig. 69.

  Fig. 69_a_.

  Heads of Isabella Gazelle, ♂ & ♀.

  (From specimens in B. M.)]

    THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL. LXV

    _Wolf del. J. Smit lith._      _Hanhart imp_

  The Muscat Gazelle.

  GAZELLA MUSCATENSIS.

  _Published by R. H. Porter._]

                        95. THE MUSCAT GAZELLE.

                     GAZELLA MUSCATENSIS, BROOKE.

                             [PLATE LXV.]

   _Gazella muscatensis_, =Brooke=, P. Z. S. 1874, p. 141, pl.
   xxii.; =Scl.= List An. Z. S. (8) p. 141 (1883); =id.= (9) p. 155
   (1896); =Lyd.= Horns and Hoofs, p. 179 (1893); =Thos.= P. Z. S.
   1894, p. 451.

Size small, height at withers 21–22 inches. General colour dark
rufous fawn, darker than in any other species except _G. arabica_,
which it much resembles in colour. Light lateral band scarcely or not
perceptible; dark lateral band blackish, its upper edge little defined.
Central facial band dark rufous, a distinct blackish patch over the
nasals; light facial streak narrow, well defined, dark band below it
not defined from the general colour of the cheeks. Knee-tufts present,
brownish. Limbs darker in colour than usual, being only white on the
inner sides of the forearms and thighs.

Skull very similar to that of _G. isabella_. Premaxillæ scarcely
touching nasals. Basal length in an old female 5·7 inches, greatest
breadth 2·9, muzzle to orbit 3·6.

Horns of males curved like those of _G. isabella_, but decidedly
shorter, not or little longer than the skull.

_Female._ Similar to the male, but the horns slender, scarcely
ringed, nearly as long as those of the other sex.

   _Hab._ Oman, Eastern Arabia.

On the 15th of August, 1873, the Zoological Society of London received
as a present from Major C. B. Euan Smith (now Col. Sir Charles B.
Euan Smith, K.C.B.) a male Gazelle which he had brought with him
from Muscat. On September 20th of the same year a female, obviously
of the same species and obtained at the same place, was received by
the Society on deposit from Mrs. Harris, then of Limefield, Kirkby
Lonsdale. Sir Victor Brooke having then lately published his well-known
monograph of the Gazelles in the Zoological Society’s ‘Proceedings,’
and being specially interested in the group, Sclater lost no time in
calling Sir Victor’s attention to these animals, with which he was much
delighted. Sir Victor described them as belonging to a new species at
the meeting of the Zoological Society on Feb. 27, 1874, under the name
_Gazella muscatensis_, and pointed out the clear differences which
separated them from _G. arabica_, which up to that time he had
believed to be the only Gazelle met with in any part of Arabia.

    Fig. 70.    Fig. 70 _a_.

  Heads of Muscat Gazelle, ♂ & ♀.

  (From specimens in B. M.)]

Instead of the massive, nearly straight, non-lyrate horns of _G.
arabica_, Sir Victor showed that the new species had rather slender
horns, compressed from side to side and distinctly lyrate, with their
points turned boldly forwards and inwards. In general appearance also
the Muscat Gazelles differed from _G. arabica_ in their long and
soft coats of a silvery-grey colour, instead of the short close-set
pelage of a rich grizzled bay. From _G. dorcas_, to which they
bore more resemblance, the Muscat species was recognizable by its
smaller size, its different colour, and by the intensity of the facial
and lateral markings.

Sir Victor’s paper on this new Gazelle was illustrated in the
‘Proceedings’ by a good coloured plate drawn by Keulemans, in which,
however, the general colour is made rather too dark.

In 1874 a second male specimen of this well-marked species was
presented to the Zoological Society’s Menagerie by Mr. J. H.
Bainbridge, and in October 1881 a pair of the same Gazelle were
presented by the late Lord Lilford. These last bred a young one, which
was born in the Society’s Gardens on the 6th of March, 1882.

No more examples of the Muscat Gazelle reached the Regent’s Park after
this date until 1894, when a female of this species was obtained
“in exchange,” and a pair were received “on deposit” from the Hon.
Walter Rothschild, F.Z.S. The male of this pair is still living in the
Society’s Menagerie.

The only other specimens of the Muscat Gazelle ever received in Europe,
so far as we know, are five examples in the British Museum, presented
to that Institution by Dr. A. S. G. Jayakar, of whose many and valuable
contributions to science we have already spoken[14]. Among the several
consignments of the Mammals of Oman sent home by Dr. Jayakar, of which
Thomas has given an account in the Zoological Society’s ‘Proceedings’
for 1894, were five examples of this Gazelle collected in 1892 and
1893 in several localities in Oman--Khode and Barkah-al-moze, and in
Sharkeeyeh, the eastern part of that country. These specimens agree
very closely with the type of the species as described by Sir Victor
Brooke, which is also in the National Collection.

Our figures of both sexes of this Gazelle (Plate LXV.) have been
prepared by Mr. Smit from the specimens in the British Museum.

    _May,_ 1898.

    THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL. LXVI.

    _Wolf del. J. Smit lith._    _Hanhart imp._

  Heuglin’s Gazelle.

  GAZELLA TILONURA.

  _Published by R.H.Porter._]

                        96. HEUGLIN’S GAZELLE.

                      GAZELLA TILONURA (HEUGL.).

                             [PLATE LXVI.]

   _Antilope melanura_, =Heugl.= Ant. u. Büff. N.O.-Afr. (N. Act.
   Leop. xxx. pt. 2) p. 6 (1863) (_nec_ Bechstein, 1799).

   _Gazella melanura_, =Fitz=, SB. Wien, lix. pt. 1, p. 159 (1869).

   _Antilope tilonura_, =Heugl.= Reise Weiss. Nil, p. 315 (1869);
   =id.= Reise N.O.-Afr. ii. p. 101 (1877).

   _Gazella tilonura_, =Ward=, Horn Meas. (1) p. 126 (1892), (2) p.
   170 (1896); =Lyd.= Horns and Hoofs, p. 233 (1893).

   _Gazella lævipes_, =Brooke=, P. Z. S. 1873, p. 541 (_nec_ Sund.).

   VERNACULAR NAME:--_Tel-badu_ in Tigré (_Heuglin_).

Height at withers about 27 inches. General colour deep sandy. Central
facial band but little more rufous than the back; no black patch on
muzzle. Light facial streak scarcely or not perceptible on sides of
muzzle; the area round the eye dull whitish, not sharply defined. Back
of ears scarcely lighter than nape. Light lateral band present, not
strongly defined. Dark lateral band black, strongly marked, though
narrower than in _G. thomsoni_; a sandy line present between it
and the white of the belly. No dark pygal band. Tail sandy at base, the
remainder black. Knee-brushes present, dark sandy.

Horns not, or little, longer than the head, lyrate, parallel at base,
curving outwards above and then abruptly twisted inwards towards each
other at the tip, the ends each forming a sharp hook, similar to that
found in _G. soemmerringi_, but even more strongly bent inwards.

   _Hab._ Bogosland, North-east Africa.

    Fig. 71.      Fig. 72.

  Heads of Heuglin’s Gazelle, ♂ & ♀.

  (From specimens in B. M.)]

What little we know of this Gazelle is chiefly due to the researches
of the late Baron Theodor von Heuglin, an energetic collector and
observer of the Mammals and Birds of North-eastern Africa, whose name
we have already had frequent occasion to mention in the pages of this
work. In the absence of any better designation, we have selected
“Heuglin’s Gazelle” as its English name, which is so far applicable
that, besides being its first describer, Heuglin is the only naturalist
that has recorded observations on it as met with in its native wilds.
Heuglin passed several months in the fertile territory of Bogos, north
of Abyssinia (now, we believe, included in the Italian colony of
“Eritrea”), when attached to the German expedition sent out in search
of the much-lamented traveller Dr. Eduard Vogel. He thoroughly explored
this country, which is traversed by the River Anseba, and discovered
many new birds and mammals, which were subsequently described in his
various works. Amongst the mammals was the present species of Gazelle,
which he met with only “on the bushy plains round Ain-Saba from 3000
to 5000 feet above the sea-level, in small families of from three to
six individuals.” In his original description Heuglin called this
Gazelle _Antilope melanura_, but subsequently altered its specific
name to “_tilonura_,” there having been already an _Antilope melanura_
of Bechstein, which term is, however, a useless synonym of the Oribi
(_Ourebia scoparia_). We have not been able to discover what the term
“_tilonura_” means, but follow the change, which has been adopted by
Sir Victor Brooke and other authors.

Little more, we regret to say, can be told of this beautiful species,
which is readily distinguishable amongst its congeners by its broad
black lateral stripe and lyre-shaped horns with incurved points. Sir
Victor Brooke gave a figure of it from a stuffed specimen in his own
collection to illustrate his article on the Gazelles in the Zoological
Society’s ‘Proceedings’ for 1873. Our figure (Plate LXVI.), which was
prepared by Smit under the direction of Sir Victor Brooke, was probably
taken from the same specimen, now in the British Museum, to which it
has been presented by Sir Douglas Brooke. It was obtained in Bogosland
by Essler about 1872. Four other examples of this Gazelle procured
at the same time by the same collector are also in the National
Collection. From two of these the accompanying illustrations of the
head and horns (figs. 71 & 72, p. 160) have been prepared by Mr. Smit.

    _May,_ 1898.

    THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL. LXVII.

    _Wolf del. J. Smit lith._      _Hanhart imp._

  The Red-fronted Gazelle.

  GAZELLA RUFIFRONS.

  _Published by R. H Porter_]

                     97. THE RED-FRONTED GAZELLE.

                       GAZELLA RUFIFRONS, GRAY.

                            [PLATE LXVII.]

   _Le Kevel_, =F. Cuv.= H. N. Mamm. (fol.) i. livr. 1, pl. 368
   (1818); _Corine_, ii. livr. 36, pl. 369 (1822), and _Corine
   jeune_, iv. livr. 72, pl. 370 (1842).

   _Gazella rufifrons_, =Gray=, Ann. Mag. N. H. (1) xviii. pp. 214
   & 231 (1846); =id.= Knowsl. Men. p. 5, pl. iv. (1850); =id.= P.
   Z. S. 1850, p. 115; =id.= Cat. Ung. B. M. p. 60 (1852); =id.=
   Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 39 (1872); =id.= Hand-l. Rum. B. M. p. 108
   (1873); =Brooke=, P. Z. S. 1873, p. 540; =Scl.= List An. Z.
   S. (8) p. 140 (1883); =Lyd.= Horns and Hoofs, p. 232 (1893);
   =Ward=, Horn Meas. (2) p. 159 (1896).

   _Antilope lævipes_, =Sund.= Pecora, K. Vet.-Ak. Handl. 1845, p.
   266 (1847); =id.= Hornschuch’s Transl., Arch. Skand. Beitr. ii.
   p. 262; Reprint, p. 82 (1848) (ex _Kevel_ and _Corine_, F. Cuv.,
   _nec_ Buff.); =Wagn.= Schr. Säug. Suppl. v. p. 404 (1855).

   _Gazella lævipes senegalensis_, =Fitz.= SB. Wien, lix. p. 159
   (1869).

   VERNACULAR NAME:--_Seni_, on the Gambia (_Whitfield_ fide
   _Gray_).

Size medium, form comparatively rather stout. General colour deep
sandy rufous, brightening into rich rufous on the forehead and
muzzle. Nose-spot blackish. White facial streaks well defined, dark
cheek-stripes rufous. Light lateral band broad, sandy buff, about the
colour of the shoulders, sharply defined from the colour of the back;
dark lateral band narrow, black, sharply defined, very prominent,
succeeded below by a narrow edging of sandy. Knee-tufts absent. Tail
blackish, except just at the base above, where it is sandy.

Skull of medium build; nasals rather broad and short, broadened behind;
nasal opening long and narrow, the upper line of the premaxillæ
straighter and less concave than usual. Dimensions of a slightly
immature male:--Basal length 7 inches, greatest breadth 3, muzzle to
orbit 3·95.

Horns rather short in proportion to the size of the animal, evenly
divergent, slightly curved backwards below and forwards above, heavily
ringed except for the terminal two or three inches.

_Female._ Similar to the male, but the horns straight, slender,
and less ringed; those of an adult rather less than six inches in
length.

   _Hab._ Senegal and Gambia.

The existence of a Gazelle of the group allied to _Gazella dorcas_
in West Africa was first made known to us by the authors of the great
folio work called ‘Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères,’ issued at Paris,
in which the figures were taken mostly from living specimens. In one
of the early livraisons of this publication, in which French names
only are primarily used, this species was referred to the “Kevel” of
Buffon, and under this name a young male was figured, stated to have
been brought to France from Senegal. In a later livraison two young
specimens of the same species, also from Senegal, were figured as
the “Corine” of Buffon, which was declared to be identical with the
“Kevel.” We have, however, already shown (under the head of _Gazella
dorcas_) that both these terms of Buffon are referable to the
last-named species, and that neither these terms nor the scientific
names founded upon them can be properly used for any other species.
Hence it follows that the first scientific name that can be employed
for this Gazelle is _Gazella rufifrons_ of Gray, under which term
it was curtly described by that author in the ‘Annals and Magazine of
Natural History’ for 1846. Shortly after that period the same species
was figured in ‘Gleanings from the Knowsley Menagerie’ by Waterhouse
Hawkins, whose well-drawn plate contains portraits of two males, a
female, and a young one of the present species.

As the drawings in the ‘Gleanings’ were not in all cases taken from
animals living in Lord Derby’s Menagerie, some of them having been
prepared from specimens in the British Museum, it is nearly certain
that this was the case in the present instance. It will be observed
that Gray in his description mentions almost exactly such a series
as being in the Museum as is drawn in the ‘Gleanings,’ and it is not
probable that a similar set should also have been living at Knowsley at
the same time.

All the specimens mentioned by Gray, with one exception, are still
in the National Collection, and, as “co-types” of the species, show
clearly to what animal the name “_rufifrons_” should be applied.

In 1847, in his excellent essay on the “Pecora,” the late Professor
Carl J. Sundevall established an “_Antilope lævipes_” basing it
primarily on the figures of Geoffrey St.-Hilaire and Fr. Cuvier in
the ‘Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères,’ of which we have already
spoken. It is obvious, therefore, that Sundevall’s term “_lævipes_”
is an absolute synonym of “_rufifrons_,” though he gives as his
principal example a specimen from Sennaar in the Stockholm Museum.
But, nevertheless, there would appear to be a closely allied species
living in East Africa, which Heuglin, in his first work (‘Antilopen und
Büffel’), referred to _Antilope leptoceros_, but which he subsequently
in 1877 (‘Reise in Nordost-Afrika’) treated of under Sundevall’s name
“_Antilope lævipes_.” Heuglin states that this Gazelle, of which the
native name is “Abu-el-Harabat,” is found in Nubia, Kordofan, Sennaar,
and Taka, as also near Suakin and on the plains of the Beni Amer,
ascending to a height of about 1500 feet above the sea-level. Heuglin
specially alludes to the want of knee-tufts in his _Antilope lævipes_,
which is the case also in _Gazella rufifrons_. What this East-African
Antelope of Sundevall and Heuglin may be we are quite unable to decide,
not having been able to examine East-African specimens. It is possible,
however, that it may be _Gazella rufina_, which we shall presently
speak of.

Of the examples of this Gazelle formerly in the Knowsley Menagerie we
have already written. The Zoological Society of London have also, on
several occasions, received living examples of this species from the
West Coast of Africa. The first of these recorded of late years was
purchased in August 1865, and the second, a female, in 1869. In June
1895 a female _Gazella rufifrons_ was placed under the Society’s care
by the Hon. W. Rothschild, F.Z.S., and is still living in the Gardens.
In May of last year a fine living pair of this species were received
by the Zoological Society from a London dealer and subsequently
purchased. It is from this pair that the accompanying figures of both
sexes of this beautiful Gazelle (Plate LXVII.) have been prepared by
Mr. Smit. These animals are still living in the Society’s Gardens.
They stand about 24 inches in height at the shoulder, the male being
slightly the taller of the two. Both male and female have a slight
blackish nose-spot, as shown in our figures. The knee-brushes are quite
imperceptible in these three specimens, and the knees are perfectly
smooth.

    _May,_ 1898.

                        98. THE RUFOUS GAZELLE.

                         GAZELLA RUFINA, THOS.

   _Gazella rufina_, =Thos.= P. Z. S. 1894, p. 467 (fig., skull).

   _Antilope lævipes_, =Sund.= K. Vet.-Ak. Handl. 1845, p. 266
   (1847), form α, ex Sennaar; =id.= Hornschuch’s Transl., Arch.
   Skand. Beitr. ii. p. 262; Reprint, p. 82 (1848); =Heuglin=, Ant.
   u. Büff. N.O.-Afr. (N. Act. Leop. xxx. pt. 2) p. 6; =id.= Reise
   N.O.-Afr. ii. p. 100 (1877).

   _Antilope leptoceros_, =Heugl.= Ant. u. Büff. p. 7 (err.).

Closely similar in all respects to _G. rufifrons_, but decidedly
larger, the colour throughout particularly rich and brilliant. Light
facial streaks not white but sandy, and little different to the general
colour of the cheeks. In the single specimen known (a tanned skin), the
hairs along the centre of the back and on the sides of the rump are
peculiarly waved, but how far this may be due to the preparation of the
skin we are unable to say. Knee-brushes dull rufous.

Skull conspicuously larger and heavier than that of _G. rufifrons_.
Anteorbital fossæ larger and deeper. Nasal opening shorter and broader
in proportion to the general size, and the upper line of the premaxillæ
more curved. Basal length of the type, an old male, (circa) 8·05
inches, greatest breadth 3·86, muzzle to orbit 4·9.

Horns of male short and heavy, their curvature and proportional length
about as in _G. rufifrons_; those of the type are 11·6 inches in length
on their anterior curve.

   _Hab._ Interior of Algeria (?).

After his return from Algeria in 1894, Sir Edmund Loder, as we have
already stated, placed the whole of his series of specimens of Gazelles
from that country in Thomas’s hands for examination. Besides examples
of the two previously known Algerian species--_Gazella dorcas_ and _G.
cuvieri_--Thomas found that two other species, hitherto apparently
unrecognized, were represented in the collection. Of one of these,
which Thomas named _G. loderi_, we have treated under the head of _G.
leptoceros_. Of the other, to which we now propose to refer, only a
single specimen, consisting of a skin and a skull, was in the series.
This, however, was of so entirely a different character from the three
others above-mentioned that Thomas found it necessary to refer it to a
new species, which he proposed to call _G. rufina_, from its generally
bright, rich rufous colour. The specimen not having been obtained in
the field, but having been purchased at a shop in Algiers (in the
spring of 1877), cannot have any certain locality assigned to it; but
in all probability it was brought from somewhere in the interior, as
it is hardly likely that such an object would have been imported into
Algiers from a distant country.

  [Illustration: Fig. 73.

  Skull of Rufous Gazelle.

  (P. Z. S. 1894, p. 468.)]

There can be no doubt that, as stated above, _Gazella rufina_ is most
nearly allied to _G. rufifrons_ of Senegal, from which, however, we
have already stated its points of difference. Sir Edmund Loder has
had a water-colour drawing of the typical specimen prepared by Smit,
which has much assisted us in our study of it. It is obviously a larger
and more richly coloured animal than _G. rufifrons_, and its skull,
of which, by the kindness of the Zoological Society, we are enabled
to give the figure that originally appeared in their ‘Proceedings’
(fig. 73, p. 168), is remarkable for its stout and heavy build and
short nasal opening. The only conjecture we can make respecting this
somewhat problematical species is that it may possibly be the same as
_Gazella lævipes_ of Sundevall and Heuglin from North-east Africa, of
which we have spoken in our article on _Gazella rufifrons_. It may
be remarked that Sundevall, in his account of _Antilope lævipes_ (K.
Vet.-Akad. Handl. 1845), has noted the existence, in the Paris Museum,
of specimens from Algeria of a Gazelle which he considers identical
with his species, form α (from Sennaar), and which he separates from
form β (from Senegal) on account of the want of the blackish nose-spot.
But even if such shall turn out eventually to be the case, the present
species will still retain the name “_rufina_,”--“_lævipes_,” as we have
already pointed out, being correctly treated of as a synonym of _G.
rufifrons_.

Sir Edmund Loder has most liberally presented the typical specimen of
_Gazella rufina_ to the British Museum.

    _May,_ 1898.

    THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL. LXVIII

    _J. Smit lith._      _Hanhart imp._

  Thomson’s Gazelle.

  GAZELLA THOMSONI.

  _Published by R. H. Porter._]

                        99. THOMSON’S GAZELLE.

                       GAZELLA THOMSONI, GÜNTH.

                            [PLATE LXVIII.]

   _Gazella thomsoni_, =Günth.= Ann. Mag. N. H. (5) xiv. p. 427
   (1884) (fig., horns); =Thomson=, Masai-land, p. 536 (1885)
   (fig., horns); =Hunter= in Willoughby, E. Africa, p. 289 (1889);
   =Ward=, Horn Meas. (1) p. 133 (1892), (2) p. 171 (1896); =True=,
   P. U.S. Nat. Mus. xv. p. 473, pl. lxxvii. (1892) (Taveta);
   =Lyd.= Horns and Hoofs, pp. 236, 239 (1893) (fig., horns);
   =Lugard=, E. Africa, i. p. 534 (1893); =Jackson=, in Badm. Big
   Game Shooting, i. pp. 285 & 298 (1894); =Scott Elliot=, P. Z.
   S. 1895, p. 340; =Matsch.= Säug. Deutsch-O.-Afr. p. 130 (1895);
   =Rhoads=, P. Ac. Philad. 1896, p. 519; =Jackson=, P. Z. S. 1897,
   p. 434.

Height at shoulders about 25 inches. General colour deep sandy rufous,
all the markings well developed and sharply defined. Central facial
band deeper rufous, a black patch present on the top of the muzzle.
Light facial streaks pure white, extending quite to the muzzle and
surrounding the eye; darker cheek-streaks blackish. Light lateral band
present, though not very much paler than the back. Dark lateral band
deep black, greatly developed, very broad, sharply defined above and
below, extending on to the outer side of the elbow; no sandy streak
between it and the white of the belly. Pygal band small, blackish.
Ears rather short. Tail sandy at its base above, the remainder black.
Knee-brushes present, sandy or whitish.

Skull with short, broad, and quadrangular nasals, nearly as broad as
long; premaxillæ straight, scarcely concave above, broadly articulating
with nasals. Basal length of skull of a male 7·7 inches, greatest
breadth 3·6, muzzle to orbit 4·25.

Horns rather like those of _G. bennetti_ on a large scale, little
divergent, sometimes even quite parallel, evenly but very slightly
curved backwards for seven-eighths of their length, their tips gently
recurved upwards and forwards. In length, over the front curve, they
attain to about 14 or 15 inches, the record being 15½.

_Female._ Similar to the male, but with the horns rudimentary, much
smaller than in other African Gazelles; only from 3 to 6 inches in
length, of about the thickness of a cedar pencil, smooth and unridged,
and in direction crooked and irregular.

   _Hab._ Interior of British and German East Africa, from
   Lake Rudolph south to Irangi.

  [Illustration: Fig. 74.

  Horns of Thomson’s Gazelle, ♂.

  (Ann. Mag. N. H. (5) xiv. p. 427.)]

The name of Joseph Thomson, the African traveller, will always rank
among the foremost of those who in the second half of this century have
striven to open the Dark Continent to civilized man, and have lost
their lives at an early age by violence or disease in consequence.
Thomson was, moreover, one of the very few amongst African explorers
who had never shed the blood of a native, nor even, we believe, during
his many journeys, fired a shot in self-defence. Thomson’s name has
been worthily associated with the present Gazelle, of which he was the
discoverer during his expedition through Masai-land to Lake Victoria in
1883 and 1884, and of which he first brought back specimens to Europe.

Thomson, as we are informed by Dr. Günther, who described this Gazelle
as _Gazella thomsoni_ in June 1884 from two frontlets presented by
Thomson to the British Museum, met with it on his way up the country
from the plains near Kilimanjaro to Lake Baringo, at various elevations
under 6000 feet. Dr. Günther, we may remark, in his description and
figure of these horns fell into a not unnatural error in treating the
more slender pair (fig. 74_a_, p. 172) as those of a female. But,
as we have already stated, the horns are always abnormally small in the
doe of this Gazelle, and sometimes, it is said, altogether wanting. The
slenderer pair of horns shown in Dr. Günther’s figures, which we have
been kindly allowed to reproduce in this work, are, like the stouter
pair, doubtless those of a male.

In his volume ‘Through Masai-land,’ Thomson does not appear to have
made any reference to this Gazelle, except by repeating the figures
of the horns (p. 536) already published by Dr. Günther. Thomson had
intended, we believe, to put his notes on the animals and plants
collected and observed during this expedition into an Appendix, which,
however, from pressure of other matters, was never written.

After Thomson himself, the next earliest information obtained
concerning this Gazelle appears to be that collected by Sir John
Willoughby’s hunting-party in 1886–87. In the Appendix to ‘East-Africa
and its Big Game,’ Mr. Hunter writes of it as follows:--

   “This Gazelle, discovered by Mr. J. Thomson during his trip
   through Masai-land in 1883, was found in large numbers in the
   plains in the Masai country to the south-west of Kilimanjaro,
   and we also came across it on the borders of the Masai country
   at the south end of Kyulu mountain, but it is not met with on
   the south side of the mountain between these two points. I have
   seen these Gazelles mixing with _Gazella granti_, the female of
   which, at long range, though larger, is easily mistaken for a
   male _G. thomsoni_, both having the broad black stripe on the
   side. They are generally seen in small herds of one male to
   about ten females.”

In the first volume of ‘Big Game Shooting,’ of the Badminton Library,
Mr. F. J. Jackson, than whom no one can be better qualified to speak
of East-African Antelopes, gives us his experiences with the present
species in the following words:--

  [Illustration: Fig. 75.

  Front view of head of Thomson’s Gazelle, ♀.

  (Neumann’s ‘Elephant-Hunting,’ p. 11.)]

   “In habits _G. thomsoni_ is very like _G. granti_, but, as a
   rule, is found in rather larger herds. Single bucks of this
   species are, however, more often seen than single bucks of _G.
   granti_. At Lake Naivasha, in July 1890, I saw a large herd of
   some sixty head, composed entirely of does, and in the same
   place, in September of the previous year, I saw a herd of some
   thirty or forty beasts, every one of which was a buck; but I
   do not think that this can be taken as evidence that the bucks
   and does separate at certain seasons of the year, as on the
   same days on which I saw these two herds I also saw others in
   which the bucks and does were together. Thomson’s Gazelle is
   a confiding little beast, and, except in places close to a
   well-beaten caravan-route, where it has been constantly shot at,
   can be easily approached within 120 yards with ordinary care
   and perseverance, even in the most open and covertless spots.
   These beasts appear to be confined almost entirely to the Masai
   country, as I have not heard of their having been seen east of
   the Sigarari plains to the south of Kilimanjaro, or south of
   the Useri river and the headwaters of the Tsavo. I saw none at
   Njemps near Lake Baringo, or in Turkwel and Ngaboto in the Suk
   country, though _G. granti_ was plentiful in all these places.”

Writing subsequently in the Zoological Society’s ‘Proceedings’ on the
Antelopes of the Mau District of British East Africa, Mr. Jackson says
that this Gazelle does not, as he believes, extend beyond a few miles
north of Lake Nakuru. He adds that “the females are _horned_,
whatever may be said to the contrary.” With this view Mr. Arthur H.
Neumann, one of our most recent explorers in British East Africa,
quite agrees. In his lately published volume on ‘Elephant-Hunting’ in
that Protectorate, Mr. Neumann gives a figure of the head of a female
Thomson’s Gazelle, which, by his kindness and that of his publishers,
Messrs. Rowland Ward & Co., we are enabled to reproduce (fig. 75,
p. 174): this shows that the horns are present in that sex of _G.
thomsoni_, though in a much more dwarfed condition than in most of
its allies. Mr. Neumann also claims to have met with this Gazelle much
further north than its range is usually held to extend. This was in the
district of Kisima, south of the Lorogi Mountains and north of Lake
Naivasha.

Col. Lugard, who has had great experience in East-African
game-shooting, has stated[15] that he had never met with a horned
female of Thomson’s Gazelle. A letter lately received from our
much-valued correspondent, Mr. S. L. Hinde of the B.E.A. Medical
Service, in response to enquiries on this point, endeavours to explain
this diversity of opinion as follows:--

   “With reference to the statement that the female Thomson’s
   Gazelle has no horns, I can, perhaps, give some explanation. The
   horns of the female of this species (see the skulls given by me
   to the British Museum) are very frail, crooked, and generally
   malformed. A good pair would be about five inches long; but
   a very slight blow will break or knock off these horns. Four
   or five females of this Gazelle that I have shot have knocked
   off one or both horns when falling to the shot or in their
   subsequent struggles.

   “A doe of this species born in the fort at Kikuyu developed
   horns; but in play with the rest of the herd of five, knocked
   them off when they were not more than two inches long, and
   when I last saw her there were two warty scars where the horns
   had been. I should think that a similar accident is probably a
   very common occurrence among the wild herds; so much so, that I
   should not be surprised to see a herd of does ‘without horns.’
   The yearling fawns running with their mothers would have horns
   not more than half an inch long, and therefore invisible. If a
   man, for any reason, were to shoot a doe out of such a herd he
   would probably choose the largest animal. Afterwards, if the
   question were raised, he would say that he saw a herd of does of
   Thomson’s Gazelle absolutely hornless, and on shooting one found
   there were only little marks on the head where the horns would
   have been if the animal had had any.

   “I have myself seen hundreds of these Gazelles in Ukambaui, some
   without horns, some with one, and some with both horns. Of those
   I have shot or seen shot myself, two were without horns, one
   had one horn about three inches long, and four had both horns
   averaging three and a half inches in length, while two had horns
   about three-quarters of an inch long.”

Passing on to German East Africa we find, from Dr. Matschie’s volume
on the Mammals of that country, that Thomson’s Gazelle was met with by
Herr Oscar Neumann at various points on his journey north from Tanga
to the Victoria Lake. Mount Gurui, Lake Manyara, Ndalalani on the
Natron Lake, and the district between Guasso Nyiro and Ngare Dobasch
are specially mentioned, but north and west of the latter locality Herr
Neumann did not find it. It was also obtained near Mount Meru by Herr
v. Höhnel, and in Northern Irambi by Herr Stuhlmann.

We are not aware that examples of Thomson’s Gazelle have ever been
brought to Europe alive; but it would appear that young individuals
of this species are often captured and kept in confinement in British
East Africa. The late Capt. B. L. Sclater, R.E., who made the road from
Kibwesi to Port Victoria in 1895–97, in his letters written home refers
to several such cases, and Lieut. G. E. Smith, R.E., who was second in
command of Capt. Sclater’s party, kindly sends us the following notes
about them:--“Early in January 1896 Capt. Sclater obtained from the
Masai two young Thomson’s Gazelles, which were fed by hand and throve
well. They became quite tame and used to run about the camp and play
with a puppy. One of them subsequently ran away, but the other remained
with the camping-party for nearly a year.” At Kikuyu, Lieut. G. E.
Smith saw a pair of Thomson’s Gazelles then fully grown, having been in
possession of Mr. Hall, the Resident, for more than two years. The buck
was rather fierce and apt to attack natives with his horns. Major Eric
Smith, we are told, also generally had two or three of these Gazelles
scampering about his station at Naivasha very tame.

Our figure of the male of this Antelope (Plate LXVIII.) has been
prepared by Mr. Smit from a mounted specimen in the British Museum
presented by Mr. F. J. Jackson. There are also in the Museum a second
mounted specimen of a male presented by Mr. H. C. V. Hunter and the
skull of a male from Lake Naivasha presented by Col. Lugard. Besides
these the Museum contains two frontlets with horns, being the typical
specimens obtained by Thomson, and some skins and skulls of both sexes
from Machakos, presented by Mr. S. L. Hinde, as already mentioned in
his letter.

    _May,_ 1898.

    THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL LXIX

    _Wolf del J Smit lith_      _Hanhart imp_

  Grant’s Gazelle.

  GAZELLA GRANTI.

  _Published by R. H. Porter_]

                         100. GRANT’S GAZELLE.

                        GAZELLA GRANTI, BROOKE.

                             [PLATE LXIX.]

   _New Antelope_, Ugogo, =Speke=, Journ. of Disc. p. 61 (1863).

   _Antilope soemmerringii_?, =Speke=, P. Z. S. 1863, p. 3 (Ugogo).

   _Gazella granti_, =Brooke=, P. Z. S. 1872, p. 601, pl. xli.;
   =id.= P. Z. S. 1873, p. 550; =Scl.= P. Z. S. 1875, p. 527, pl.
   lix. (Viv. Soc. Zool.); =Brooke=, P. Z. S. 1878, p. 723 (figs.,
   head); =Scl.= List An. Z. S. (8) p. 142 (1883); =Pagenst.= JB.
   Mus. Hamb. ii. p. 38 (1884); =Johnston=, Kilimanjaro Exp. p.
   394 (1886); =Hunter=, in Willoughby, E. Africa, p. 289 (1889);
   =Flow. & Lyd.= Mamm. p. 342, fig. 2 (head) (1891); =Ward=, Horn
   Meas. (1) p. 104 (1892), (2) p. 148 (1896); =True=, P. U. S.
   Nat. Mus. xv. p. 473 (1892); =Lyd.= Horns and Hoofs, p. 236
   (1893); =Lugard=, E. Afr. i. p. 534 (1893); =Jackson=, in Badm.
   Big Game Shooting, i. p. 298 (1894); =id.= P. Z. S. 1897, p.
   453; =Matsch.= Säug. Deutsch-Ost-Afr. p. 131 (1895); =Donaldson
   Smith=, P. Z. S. 1895, p. 868; =A. Neumann=, Elephant-Hunting in
   E. Africa, pp. 9, 10 (figs., horns, ♂ ♀) (1898).

   VERNACULAR NAMES:--_Swara_ (_Jackson_) and _Njéra_ (_Stuhlmann_)
   in Swahili.

Size large; height at withers about 34 inches. Fur close and short.
General colour fawn, rather variable in tone. Lateral bands, both
light and dark, usually very indistinct, often scarcely perceptible;
but, on the other hand, occasionally well developed, especially in
young animals. Central facial band richer fawn, approaching rufous;
a brownish spot present on the muzzle. Light facial streaks white,
sharply defined, running up over the eyes to the horns. Below these
the dark facial bands are almost imperceptible, scarcely or not at
all darker than the fawn-coloured cheeks and neck. Rump with the
white of the hams very broad, extended upwards, and uniting across
the base of the tail, so that the latter is quite separated from the
dark body-colour; laterally the white penetrates angularly into the
body-colour, overhanging the top of the pygal band, which is generally
well-defined. Outer sides of limbs fawn, without blacker markings.
Knee-brushes present, dark fawn. Tail above white for its basal half;
black and crested terminally.

Skull stout and heavy, nasal opening broad. In that of an adult male
the basal length is 9·75 inches, greatest breadth 4·4, muzzle to orbit
5·3.

Horns very long, longer and more powerful than in any other Gazelle;
evenly but slightly curved backwards below, and gently recurved
forwards terminally; sometimes but slightly divergent, but more often,
especially in specimens from Kilimanjaro, they spread widely above,
approaching each other again at their tips. Their section at base is
a long oval, very different from the nearly circular section found in
_G. soemmerringi_.

_Female._ Similar to the male, but the horns slender, nearly
circular in section, more strongly ridged than in the females of most
Gazelles; about two-thirds in length of those of the male.

   _Hab._ Eastern Africa, from the district of Lake Rudolph,
   southwards to Ugogo.

Grant’s Gazelle, which has been appropriately named after one of its
discoverers, is pre-eminent, even in this ornamental genus, for its
size and elegance, and is, in fact, generally allowed to be one of the
most beautiful species of the whole group of Antelopes. Speke and Grant
left Zanzibar on the well-known expedition during which the efflux of
the Nile from Lake Victoria was discovered, in September 1860. Starting
from Bagamoyo on the opposite coast, and passing through Usagara,
they arrived about two months later in Ugogo, then under the rule of
a native chief called Magomba. It was in December 1860 during their
stay at this place, where they were long detained by the drunken chief
and his wazir, that Speke first met with the present Antelope. In the
‘Journal’ of his travels Speke tells us that while kept waiting to
arrange the amount of his “hongo” he took the time out in the jungles
very profitably, “killing a fine buck and doe Antelope of an unknown
species.” “These animals,” he continues, “are of much about the same
size and shape as the common Indian Antelope, and like them roam about
in large herds, the most marked difference between the two being in
the shape of their horns, and in their colour, in which in both sexes
the Ugogo Antelopes rather resemble the _Gazella picticaudata_ of
Tibet, except that the former have dark markings on the face.”

  [Illustration: Fig. 76.

  Grant’s Gazelle, Ugogo.

  (From Speke’s ‘Journal of Discovery,’ p. 61.)]

The original woodcut of Speke’s ‘Journal,’ drawn by Wolf, as shown
by his initials, we have now the pleasure of reproducing by the kind
favour of the publishers of that work. It was no doubt executed under
Speke’s direction, and, although not quite satisfactory according to
our present knowledge of the animal, gives several views of the shape
and size of the horns of Grant’s Gazelle.

Although Speke in his ‘Journal’ writes of the Ugogo Antelope as being
undoubtedly new, he was at first evidently by no means certain about
this point, as in a letter addressed to Sclater from Kazeh, in February
1861, he referred it doubtfully to _Gazella soemmerringi_. But in
a footnote to this letter (which was published in the ‘Proceedings’ of
the Zoological Society for January 1863) Sclater stated his conviction
that, so far as could be determined from the rough sketch of the horns
which accompanied the letter, the Ugogo Antelope was certainly new, and
he added that the late Dr. Gray was of the same opinion.

  [Illustration: Fig. 77.]

  [Illustration: Fig. 78.

  Heads of Grant’s Gazelle, ♂ & ♀.

  (From Mr. Jackson’s specimens.)]

The box containing the specimens of the new Gazelle from Ugogo
having been unfortunately lost on its journey to the coast, Sclater
was unable to give any account of this animal in his paper on the
Mammals collected and observed during the East-African Expedition,
in the ‘Proceedings’ of the Zoological Society for 1864. The subject
therefore was delayed until 1872, when Sir Victor Brooke, who was at
that time busy upon the Antelopes, obtained from Col. Grant and Capt.
Speke the careful sketches of the heads and skins of this animal which
the travellers had made in their note-books. The examination of these
sketches confirmed Brooke in the opinion that the Antelope represented
by them was undoubtedly new to science; and consequently on April 16th
of that year Sir Victor read a communication to the Zoological Society
in which he proposed to name the new Gazelle after Grant, Speke’s
name in this group of animals having been already commemorated by the
_Gazella spekei_ of Blyth and the _Tragelaphus spekei_ of Sclater.
Sir Victor gave as good a description of the new Antelope as he could
from the notes before him, especially alluding to the extraordinary
development of its horns, which attained dimensions nearly double those
of any other Gazelle known to him. Brooke’s paper, which is accompanied
by a beautiful coloured figure of the new Antelope, prepared by Wolf
from Speke’s sketches, states that Col. Grant, who had supplied him
with copious extracts from his note-books, informed him that this
species was only met with during their expedition in Western Kinyenye,
in Ugogo. The country inhabited by it he described as low-lying sandy
plains, dotted over in some places with euphorbias, dwarf acacias,
and stunted baobabs. The chief peculiarity of this district, owing
doubtless to its comparatively low level, was the great accumulation of
salt, which had of course a marked effect on the vegetation. Water at
all times of the year was very scarce there, and often entirely absent,
the little found being brackish and undrinkable.

In 1875 the Zoological Society received as a present from Sir John
Kirk, then British Consul-General at Zanzibar, a living female Grant’s
Gazelle, which, however, was unfortunately in very poor condition
and died shortly after its arrival in London. The acquisition of
this animal was announced by Sclater in a report on the additions to
the Society’s Menagerie read on November 2nd of that year, and was
accompanied by a figure of it drawn from the stuffed specimen by Mr.
Smit. So far as we know, this is the only individual of Grant’s Gazelle
that has ever reached Europe alive.

It will be observed that the original place of discovery of Grant’s
Gazelle was in what is now German East Africa. In this country,
according to Herr Matschie, it has an extensive range over the whole
western portion of the colony, extending up to Mpapwa, in which
district several sportsmen have met with it, and through Irangi on to
Lake Victoria on the borders of British territory. Over this country it
has been found in many localities by Fischer, Neumann, and Stuhlmann.
Throughout these districts it appears to resort principally, as stated
by Grant, to the more open sandy plains, which are thinly covered with
euphorbias and other trees, especially where a saline vegetation is
prevalent.

In the eastern districts of British East Africa, Grant’s Gazelle
appears to be not less prevalent in similar spots. Mr. Hunter, in
his Appendix to Willoughby’s ‘East Africa,’ tells us that during his
expedition in 1888 it was found to be common everywhere in the open
plains near Kilimanjaro, one male being generally accompanied by from
10 to 15 females. It was at that time most common in the direction
of Useri. The longest pair of horns obtained by the party measured
30 inches in length, but 27 inches were considered to constitute a
big head. The best female’s head obtained measured 17 inches along
the inside curve. Dr. Abbott, during his expedition to Kilimanjaro,
as recorded by Mr. True, obtained a good series of specimens of this
Antelope, which are now in the United States National Museum. Capt. F.
D. Lugard, in his volumes on ‘The Rise of our East-African Empire,’
writes of Grant’s Gazelle as being “a model of symmetry,” while “its
large and massive horns are most beautiful in their curve and are
carried most gracefully.” He continues as follows:--

   “Grant’s Gazelle is always found on the open plains and in
   rocky ground far from water, and never near forest. Both sexes
   are horned; the female carries thin but long horns (up to 17
   inches in length), the points, as is the case in all horned
   female Antelopes, turning inwards, the curve being more or
   less lyre-shaped. I have weighed a male and found it weigh 115
   lbs. without the stomach; female 65 lbs. The horns of the male
   measure up to 30 inches and are about 7 inches in circumference
   at the base. They are annulated, black in colour, and bend
   backwards and then forwards at the tip. Anything above 25 inches
   would be a ‘good head.’”

Another excellent authority on the Antelopes of British East Africa,
Mr. F. J. Jackson, in a recent article on the subject, writes as
follows:--

   “Grant’s Gazelle ranges north into Turkwel and the Sak country,
   but is not found on the Mau plateau. At Njemps and Baringo, and
   in Turkwel, this Gazelle is considerably smaller than those
   found further south at Naivasha and on the Athi plains. At
   Njemps I shot the largest buck out of a herd of thirty, in which
   there were three or four other bucks. It was an old beast, in
   good condition, but only weighed 135 lbs. with horns 20 inches.
   To show the differences in size I append some measurements for
   comparison:--

 +-----------------------+---------------+----------------------+---------------+
 |                       |               |                      |_G. granti_, ♂.|
 |                       |_G. granti_, ♂.|_G. granti_, ♂ (two). |Gil-Gil River, |
 |                       |    Njemps     |  Gil-Gil River, Lake | Lake Naivasha |
 |                       |  (21.9.96).   |   Naivasha (2.1.96). |   (4.4.96).   |
 |-----------------------+---------------+-----------+----------+---------------+
 |                       |   ft.  in.    |   ft. in. |  ft. in. |    ft.  in.   |
 |                       |               |           |          |               |
 |Total length           |    5   3      |   5   8   |  5   7   |    5   7      |
 |Height at shoulder     |    2  11      |   3   1½  |  3  2½   |    3   0½     |
 |Depth of chest         |    1   1½     |   1   3   |  1   4   |    1   3      |
 |Circumference of chest |    2   9      |   3   1   |  3   3   |    3   1      |
 |       „         haunch|    3   0      |           |          |    3   5      |
 |       „         loins |    2   3      |   2   9   |  2  10   |    2   7½     |
 |       „         throat|    1   6      |   1   8   |  1   8   |    1   6      |
 |       „         neck  |    1   8      |   2   0½  |  2   1   |    1  10½     |
 |Tail                   |       10½     |      11   |     10   |       10      |
 |Horns                  |       20      |      28¼  |     27   |       24      |
 |Weight                 |   135 lbs.    |   158 lbs.|  167 lbs.|    166 lbs.”  |
 +-----------------------+---------------+-----------+----------+---------------+

Dr. Donaldson Smith has recorded the existence of this Gazelle “in
great numbers” all along his route homewards from Lake Rudolph on the
northern bank of the Tana. But these animals may possibly have belonged
to the next species _Gazella petersi_. Dr. Donaldson Smith also
met with Grant’s Gazelle in the Boran country “a little west of 39°
W.L.,” and found it “extending as far north as 6° N.L.” Mr. Cavendish
likewise obtained examples of this Gazelle during his recent expedition
to Rudolphia.

There is a good mounted specimen of an adult male of this Antelope in
the Gallery of the British Museum, obtained by Mr. F. J. Jackson in the
Kilimanjaro district of British East Africa and presented by him. Mr.
Jackson has also given the Museum a fine skull of an adult male from
the same locality, and has placed at the service of the Museum three
other mounted heads of this Antelope. The National Collection also
contains skulls of an adult pair of Grant’s Gazelle from Kilimanjaro
presented by Mr. W. Carlisle Fraser, and several skulls and skins
of different ages from Machakos, collected and presented by Mr. S.
L. Hinde. Besides these some skulls and skins obtained during the
Cavendish expedition to Lake Rudolph, and presented by Mr. H. S. H.
Cavendish and Mr. H. Andrew, have lately been added to the series.

Our illustration of this beautiful Antelope (Plate LXIX.), which shows
the horns of the male in various attitudes, was prepared by Mr. Wolf
under Sir Victor Brooke’s directions and drawn upon the stone by Mr.
Smit. We are not sure as to the specimens from which it was taken.

    _September,_ 1898.

                        101. PETERS’S GAZELLE.

                        GAZELLA PETERSI, GÜNTH.

   _Gazella granti_, =Peters=, MB. Ak. Berl. 1879, p. 832, pl. v.
   (skull).

   _Gazella petersi_, =Günth=. Ann. Mag. N. H. (5) xiv. p. 428
   (1884); =Lyd.= Horns and Hoofs, p. 238 (1893); =Jackson=,
   in Badm. Big Game Shooting, i. p. 299 (1894); =A. Neumann=,
   Elephant-Hunting in E. Africa, pp. 9, 10 (figs., horns, ♂ ♀)
   (1898).

   _Gazella grantii_ var. _gelidjiensis_, =Noack=, Zool. Gart.
   xxviii. p. 277 (1887).

   VERNACULAR NAME:--_Sala_ (Swahili) (_Fischer_).

Size large; height at withers about 33 inches. General colour and
markings practically identical with those of the last species,
_Gazella granti_, with the exception that the white rump-patch
is of much less extent. This patch, which in _G. granti_ is very
broad, and projects prominently forward on each side, overhanging the
dark pygal band, and passes across above the tail, separating that
organ entirely from the dark dorsal colour, is in _G. petersi_
divided above into two portions by an extension of the body-colour
which runs down on to and along the top of the tail. Laterally the
white is much narrower, and encroaches much less on the body-colour
above, scarcely or not at all overhanging the pygal band.

Skull rather smaller than in _G. granti_, and the nasal opening
rather narrower. Basal length in a male 9·3 inches, greatest breadth
4·2, muzzle to orbit 5·4.

Horns similar to those of _G. granti_, but smaller and more
uniformly parallel, never widely divergent above. Horns of female about
two-thirds the length of those of the male, slender and comparatively
straight.

   _Hab._ Coast-districts of British East Africa, from Mombasa
   northwards to beyond the Tana.

In a communication made to the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin
in October 1879 the former Director of the Berlin Museum, the late
Dr. Wilhelm Peters, gave an account of the specimens of Mammals
collected in East Africa in 1878 by the well-known traveller Dr. G. A.
Fischer. Amongst these were the skull and skin of a young male Gazelle
obtained at Gelidja, near the mouth of the Osi and Tana Rivers, on
June 27th, and stated to be called there by the Swahilis and Wapakomos
“_Sala_.” Peters added to his paper on this subject an excellent
lithographic plate of the skull and horns in question, which he
referred, without much doubt, to _Gazella granti_, remarking,
however, that the nose-spot was not well defined, and that the horns
were straight at the base and not curved.

  [Illustration: Fig. 79.

  Skull and horns of Peters’s Gazelle, ♂.

  (From one of Mr. Jackson’s specimens in the British Museum.)]

In 1884 Dr. Günther, commenting on Peters’s figure of this supposed
_Gazella granti_, stated that in his opinion it “clearly belonged to
a distinct species. It resembled somewhat _Gazella thomsoni_ in the
slight degree in which the horns diverge from each other; but their
annulated portion was almost straight, and the annuli themselves were
much further apart, much fewer in number (about twelve), and lower
towards the hinder part of the horn. The base of the bony core showed
a bossy swelling, which was different from that of _Gazella granti_,
and entirely absent in _Gazella thomsoni_.” This species Dr. Günther
proposed to call _Gazella petersi_.

There has, however, been much doubt raised by subsequent authorities
as to the validity of this species, and although we have given a
separate heading to _Gazella petersi_ we have had considerable
hesitation as to whether it ought not to be regarded rather as a local
subspecies of _G. granti_, to which it is closely allied in all
essential characters. But since we have as yet seen no specimens
absolutely intermediate between the two, so far as the rump-markings
are concerned, we have thought it advisable to keep them provisionally
separate. At the same time we shall be in no way surprised if such
specimens should occur, in which case the two forms will have to be
united. As regards the skulls, no constant or tangible difference
can be made out, although those of _G. petersi_ can usually be
distinguished by their smaller size, narrower nasal opening, and
shorter and less divergent horns.

Mr. F. G. Jackson, in ‘Big Game Shooting,’ gives us the following
account of this Gazelle and his experiences with it:--

“_Gazella petersi_ (known to the Swahilis also as ‘Sala’) may be
a local variety of _G. granti_ rather than a distinct species. It
used to be plentiful at Merereni on the British East African coast, and
is still found further inland in the Galla country. It is certainly a
smaller beast than _Gazella granti_ from Kilimanjaro and Machakos,
but in other respects is almost identical, excepting in the shape and
size of the horns, which I have never known to exceed 22 inches in
length measured along the curve. The horns are also straighter, and
have not nearly such a pronounced backward curve as those of _G.
granti_, neither do they diverge towards the points so much, being
rarely more than seven or eight inches apart at the widest parts.
_Gazella petersi_ is found in the small open plains and open
scrub.”

In the gallery of the British Museum there is a good mounted specimen
of the adult male of this species, also another younger specimen from
the “Mainland opposite Zanzibar,” and a third from “Mombasa,” besides
two skulls (♂ and ♀) from “South Somaliland,” all presented by Sir
John Kirk. These were formerly labelled _G. granti_, but must be
referred to _G. petersi_ if the species are kept separate. There
is also in the Museum a fine skin and skull of a male _G. petersi_
from near Mount Pika-pika, about 40 miles from Mombasa, presented by
Mr. L. E. Caine. It would appear, therefore, that the range of _G.
petersi_ until lately extended all along the coast of British East
Africa, though it has now perhaps been nearly shot out in the southern
parts.

The British Museum has likewise three skulls of this Gazelle from the
Tana River presented by Mr. F. J. Jackson, to whom we are also much
indebted for the loan of two other representative heads of this species
from Merereni, south of Formosa Bay.

    _September,_ 1898.

                       102. THE BANDED GAZELLE.

                         GAZELLA NOTATA, THOS.

   _Gazella grantii notata_, =Thos.= Ann. Mag. N. H. (6) xx. p.
   479 (1897); =A. Neumann=, Elephant-Hunting in E. Africa, p. 238
   (1898).

Only known from a single flat skin, without the head. Fur unusually
long and shaggy. Size about as in _G. granti_, and general
body-markings as in that species, but all much intensified. Dark and
light lateral bands much longer and broader, the former nearly black
and reaching forwards on to the shoulder, and backwards nearly to the
white rump-mark; the latter pale buff, and succeeded above by a second
dark band, lighter than the main lateral band, but distinctly darker
than the centre of the back. This second dark band united with the
other behind the posterior end of the light band. Pygal band black and
very strongly defined.

Horns said by the discoverer to have been like those of _G. granti_.

   _Hab._ Western slope of the Loroghi Mountains, British East
   Africa.

In Mr. Arthur H. Neumann’s recently published volume on
‘Elephant-Hunting in East Equatorial Africa’ there will be found an
account of his adventurous journey to Lake Rudolph, during which, on
more than one occasion, he made his camp for some months at El Bogoi,
a place situated east of the Loroghi Mountains, in rather higher
than 1° N. lat., which was a favourite station for elephants. While
at this place in October 1895 Mr. Neumann, accompanied by his native
attendants, made an excursion over the Loroghi range, and encamped
close to the edge of the open country on their western slope, at an
elevation reckoned to be about 5500 feet above the sea-level, at a
place called in the map attached to his narrative Kisima. Here, on
taking a stroll into the open, he “shot a brace” of what he at first
supposed to be Grant’s Gazelles; but on examination he found that they
differed from the Grant’s Gazelles of the other side of the range, and
of everywhere else that he had been, “in having longer hair, and dark
bands on the sides,” while the “shade on the back” was also deeper than
in the common kind. On one of the skins thus obtained and presented
to the British Museum (see fig. 80), Thomas has based his subspecies
“_Gazella grantii notata_.”

For much the same reasons as in the case of _G. petersi_, that
is because no intermediate examples were yet known, we decided, when
drawing up our Synopsis of Gazelles (above, p. 69), to give a separate
heading to this form.

  [Illustration: Fig. 80.

  Skin of the Banded Gazelle.]

But since our Synopsis was prepared, Lord Delamere has sent home some
skins which are, to a certain extent, intermediate between _G. granti_
and _G. notata_ in the development of the dark markings, and which,
therefore, support Thomas’s original view that the latter should be
looked upon as a subspecies of the former. Yet, on the whole, Lord
Delamere’s skins are more like _G. granti_ than _G. notata_, especially
in the character of their fur, so that they may be provisionally
assigned to the older known form, leaving the exact status of _G.
notata_ to be settled when further materials are available.

Thomas stated, in his original description of _G. notata_, that
this Gazelle had also been obtained by Mr. H. S. H. Cavendish, that
traveller having supposed that he recognized in the typical skin of
_G. notata_ a Gazelle which he had met with during his journey
to Lake Rudolph. This supposition, however, has been proved to be
mistaken, as the Gazelle in question when brought home turned out
to belong to _G. thomsoni_--an animal up to that date unknown
to Mr. Cavendish. Mr. Neumann, the donor of the typical skin of
_G. notata_ to the British Museum, remains, therefore, the only
sportsman who has yet met with this handsome form, concerning which we
hope to receive further information before long.

    _September,_ 1898.

    THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL. LXX.

  _Wolf del. J. Smit lith._    _Hanhart imp._

  Soemmerring’s Gazelle.

  GAZELLA SOEMMERRINGI.

  _Published by R. H. Porter._]

                      103. SOEMMERRING’S GAZELLE.

                  GAZELLA SOEMMERRINGI (CRETZSCHM.).

                             [PLATE LXX.]

   _Antilope soemmerringii_, =Cretzschmar=, Atl. Rüpp. Reise,
   p. 49, pl. xix. (♂) (1826); =J. B. Fisch.= Syn. Mamm. p. 462
   (1829); =Rüpp.= N. Wirb. Abyss. p. 25 (1835); =Less.= Compl.
   Buff. x. p. 287 (1836); =Waterh.= Cat. Mamm. Mus. Z. S. (2) p.
   40 (1838); =Laurill.= Dict. Univ. d’H. N. i. p. 616 (1839);
   =Gerv.= Dict. Sci. Nat. Suppl. i. p. 261 (1840); =Less.= N.
   Tabl. R. A. Mamm. p. 176 (1842); =Rüpp.= Verz. Senck. Mus. p.
   38 (1842); =Sund.= K. Vet.-Ak. Handl. 1842, p. 201 (1843);
   =Wagn.= Schr. Säug. Suppl. iv. p. 415 (1844), v. p. 405 (1855);
   =Reichenb.= Säug. iii. p. 114, pl. xxxiv. fig. 205 (1845);
   =Schinz=, Syn. Mamm. ii. p. 403 (1845); =Sund.= Pecora, K.
   Vet.-Ak. Handl. 1845, p. 266 (1847); =id.= Hornschuch’s Transl.,
   Arch. Skand. Beitr. ii. p. 262; id. Reprint, p. 82 (1848);
   =Schinz=, Mon. Antil. p. 7, pl. v. (1848); =Gieb.= Säug. p. 308
   (1853); =Heugl.= Faun. roth. Meer, Peterm. Mitth. 1861, p. 16;
   =id.= Ant. u. Buff. N.O.-Afr. (N. Act. Leop. xxx. pt. 2) p. 7
   (1863); =id.= N.O.-Afr. ii. p. 102 (1877); =Hartm.= Z. Ges.
   Erdk. Berl. iii. p. 254 (1868).

   _Gazella soemmerringii_, =Jard.= Nat. Libr. (1) vii. p. 215, pl.
   xxviii. (1842); =Gray=, List Mamm. B. M. p. 161 (1843); =id.=
   Ann. Mag. N. H. (1) xviii. p. 231 (1846); id. Knowsl. Men. p. 5
   (1850); =id.= P. Z. S. 1850, p. 114; =id.= Cat. Ung. B. M. p.
   59 (1852); =Temm.= Esq. Zool. Guin. p. 193 (1853); =Scl.= P. Z.
   S. 1867, p. 817, pl. xxxvii. (yg.); =Fitz.= SB. Wien, lix. pt.
   1, p. 158 (1869); =Blanf.= Zool. Abyss. p. 260 (1870); =Scl.=
   P. Z. S. 1871, p. 701 (Suez?); =Gray=, Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 39
   (1872); =id.= Hand-l. Rum. B. M. p. 107 (1873); =Brooke=, P. Z.
   S. 1873, p. 549; =Scl.= List An. Z. S. (8) p. 142 (1883); =Lort
   Phillips=, P. Z. S. 1885, p. 932; =Jent.= Cat. Ost. Leyd. Mus.
   (Mus. Pays-Bas, ix.) p. 137 (1887); id. Cat. Mamm. Leyd. Mus.
   (op. cit. xi.) p. 169 (1892); =Thos.= P. Z. S. 1891, p. 210;
   =W. Scl.= Cat. Mamm. Calc. Mus. ii. p. 161 (1891); =Scl.= P. Z.
   S. 1892, p. 100; =Swayne=, P. Z. S. 1892, p. 305; =Jent.= Cat.
   Mamm. Leyd. Mus. (Mus. Pays-Bas, xi.) p. 169 (1892); =Ward=,
   Horn Meas. (1) p. 108, (2) p. 150 (1896); =Lyd.= Horns and
   Hoofs, p. 236 (fig., head) (1893); =Swayne=, P. Z. S. 1895, p.
   305 (habits); id. Seventeen Trips to Somaliland, p. 314 (1895);
   =Donaldson Smith=, P. Z. S. 1895, p. 868 (Juba R.); =Hoyos=, Zu
   den Aulihan, p. 179, pl. x. fig. 6 (1895); =Thos.= Ann. Mus.
   Genov. (2) xvii. p. 107 (1896); =Elliot=, Publ. Chicago Mus.,
   Zool. i. p. 122 (1897).

   _Antilope soemmerringii berberana_, =Matsch.= SB. nat. Freund.
   1893, p. 65; =Rhoads=, P. Ac. Philad. 1896, p. 519.

   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.

  Skull and horns of _Gazella soemmerringi typica_ (male).

  (From a specimen in the British Museum.)]

Heuglin, another good authority on the animals of North-east Africa,
informs us that this Antelope extends along the coast of the Red Sea
from 20° N. latitude southwards to the Danakil country, and that it is
also found in valleys of the Baraka and Atbara in the interior, and
extends up to the neighbourhood of Berber, but is not so plentiful here
as in the coast-districts.

Dr. W. T. Blanford, who accompanied the British Abyssinian Expedition
of 1867–68 as naturalist, found this Antelope abundant on the coast of
the Red Sea near Annesley Bay and Massowah, but states that it never
ascends the hills. It was met with principally in the low bush and
acacia-scrub in herds varying in size from a few individuals up to
one hundred or more. A very large number, he adds, were shot by the
sportsmen of the Expedition, who found the flesh excellent eating.

  [Illustration: Fig. 82_a_.

  Fig. 82_b_.

  Horns of _Gazella soemmerringi berberana_, ♂ & ♀.

  (From specimens in the British Museum.)]

Examples of _Gazella soemmerringi_ are recorded by Sundevall as
being contained in the extensive collections received by the Stockholm
Museum which were made by the Swedish traveller Hedenborg in Sennaar,
but the exact localities are not specified.

So much is all we have to say about the smaller and typical form
of this species originally discovered by Rüppell. But about the
larger subspecies of Northern Somaliland, which has been named
_berberana_ by Herr Matschie, we are able to give greater details
from information supplied by the many naturalists and sportsmen who
have of late years visited the country which it inhabits. Although it
does not appear that there is any discontinuity between the ranges of
these two forms, and it is quite likely that intermediate specimens may
occur where the two forms meet, we cannot but allow that Herr Matschie
was justified in assigning a subspecific name to the Southern form. Not
only is the latter a larger and finer animal with longer horns, but the
curvature of its horns is, as we have already pointed out, so different
that, so far as our experience goes, there can be no difficulty in
distinguishing the two forms by this character alone.

Capt H. G. C. Swayne, R.E., in his ‘Seventeen Expeditions to
Somaliland,’ writes thus of _Gazella soemmerringi_:--

   “Five years ago, when I was staying in the quarters at Bulhár,
   the _Aoul_ could be seen from the bungalow grazing out on the
   plain. The Bulhár Maritime Plain used to be full of them, but