Large or medium-sized Antelopes, with the facial, neck, body, and leg markings characteristic of the subfamily usually well expressed.

Hind-quarters as high as or higher than the withers; fore limbs not longer than hind limbs. Hoofs of normal form, their length along the anterior border about equal to the basal width from back to front; posterior surface of the pasterns covered with hair. Ears large and expanded.

Horns present only in the male; of medium length or long, always longer than the face; flat at the base behind; with a strong external basal ridge arising just behind the orbit and forming an obtuse angle with the plane of the nasals; spirally twisted, the twist affecting the whole horn with the exception of its extreme tip, but shallow and not taking the form of an open corkscrew spiral; the anterior ridge, which starts in front of the middle of the base of the horn, only reappearing once close to the tip.

Skull much less flat than in Boselaphus, the parietal region more depressed. Molar teeth with short crowns; those of the upper jaw with only a small accessory column.

The species of this genus here recognized may be tabulated as follows:—

• a. Height at withers of adult male about 30 inches; horns from about 10 to 15 inches, normally with black tips; a white patch present upon the upper end of the throat.
• a¹. A large white patch at the base of the fore leg on the inner side; inner side of fore leg from knee to fetlock and of hind leg from hock to fetlock white; body striped or spotted with white.
• a². Adult male a rich dark red colour above, and very distinctly marked with many white spots and stripes  121. T. scriptus.
• b². Adult male much duller or darker in colour, spots and stripes less numerous, the latter often absent.
• a³. Colour yellowish brown; an upper longitudinal white stripe.  120. T. decula.
• b³. Colour darker and richer in adult; no upper white stripe.
• a⁴. White stripes visible in immature and sometimes retained by adult  123. T. roualeyni.
• b⁴. White stripes usually absent in young and always in adult.  122. T. sylvaticus.
• b¹. Fore leg from base to fetlock on inner side a uniform yellowish brown; hind leg similarly coloured, except for a white patch on front of hock; no stripes or spots on body  124. T. delamerei.
• b. Height at withers of adult male over 40 inches; horns 24 inches or more in length, with amber-yellow tips; no white patch at upper end of throat in either sex.
• a¹. Tail thickly hairy at sides and end; inner sides of legs below knees and hocks fawn-coloured: adult male slate-grey, with mane of long hairs extending along throat, nape, and sides above belly; females and young chestnut, with white stripes  126. T. angasi.
• b¹. Tail with tuft of hairs only at tip; inner sides of legs below knees and hocks white in front; adult male without mane and, like the female, chestnut with white stripes  125. T. eurycerus.

120. THE DECULA ANTELOPE.
TRAGELAPHUS DECULA (Rüpp.).
[PLATE LXXXVIII.]

Height at withers of adult male about 26 inches. Prevailing colour a yellowish or sandy brown, becoming darker upon the chest and belly and upon the shoulder and lower portion of the hind-quarters. Edge of upper lip, chin, and inter-ramal area white; a white spot on the cheek below the eye, a white patch at the upper and a second at the lower extremity of the throat. Hairs along spine darker brown and not noticeably tipped with white. A few white spots upon the haunches and a row of them extending along the sides of the body above the belly. Upper half of the body marked in front with a distinct white stripe, which extends longitudinally backwards from the shoulder. Transverse stripes generally entirely absent. Fore leg white on inner side at base and behind knee, also white on inner side of cannon-bone; a brown stripe extending along front of cannon-bone; white pastern-spots large and confluent. Hind limb coloured like the fore limb, but with the hocks white in front, not behind. Tail bushy, white below, with a darker tip. No collar of short hairs round base of neck. Horns short, scarcely 12 inches in length, black-tipped.

Female like male, but smaller, without horns, and with less dark colour upon the upper portions of the limbs and lower parts of body.

A male skull gives the following measurements:—Basal length 8 inches, nose to orbit 4·25, width 3·6.

Like many other characteristic animals of North-eastern Africa, the present Antelope was one of the discoveries of the great explorer and naturalist Rüppell, who first described it in his volume upon new Mammals from Abyssinia which contained the results of his long investigations in that country. Rüppell called this species “decula,” from the Latin transliteration of its Amharic native name, remarking at the same time that this word must not be confounded with “thecula,” which is the Abyssinian name for the Hunting-dog (Lycaon pictus). He remarks that the species belongs to the subgenus Tragelaphus of Blainville, and is closely allied to T. sylvaticus of the Cape, from which it is distinguishable by its smaller size and different colouring. Rüppell obtained a good series of this Antelope, and gives excellent descriptions of the adult male, the adult female, the two-year-old male, and the newly-born calf. He met with it in the bushy valleys of Central Abyssinia, round the lake of Dembea or Tana, where it feeds principally on small leaves of trees, and is said to be specially fond of the ripe fallen fruits of the sycamore fig-tree. The Deculas pair in the month of May in this district, and produce their young ones in October. They are very quick and shy, but are occasionally hunted by the natives with dogs. Their flesh, according to Rüppell, is not particularly palatable.

The only other African explorer that appears to have come across this Antelope in its native wilds is Heuglin, who, however, does not favour us with a very distinct account of his experiences of it. In his memoir on the Antelopes and Buffaloes of North-east Africa, published in 1863, Heuglin states that the range of this species extends over the districts of Upper Nubia bordering on Abyssinia, Galabat, the River Settite, and Takeh. He also gives a figure of the skull of a specimen obtained by him, which he points out differs slightly in the shape of the horns from that figured by Rüppell and in some other particulars. In a subsequent work (‘Reise in Nordost-Afrika’) Heuglin has described what he considered to be possibly a different animal (although closely allied to the Abyssinian T. decula) from the banks of the White Nile, where it is called by the Djengs “Bor,” in Bonga “Towa,” and by the Dgurs “Burah.” This Antelope he met with in pairs amongst the high grass and thick bushes of Bauhinia and Acacia-trees in the above-named districts. In case of its proving different from T. decula he proposed to designate it Tragelaphus bor.

As will be seen by our subsequent remarks, it is not quite certain which of the species of this group of Tragelaphus occurs on the White Nile. It may be either the present T. decula or one of the forms of T. scriptus.

In the British Museum there is a skin of an immature male of this species, together with its skull, belonging to the series obtained by Rüppell in Abyssinia. There are also in the National Collection an adult mounted male and female from the Upper Atbara obtained in 1874 and 1876.

Our illustration (Plate LXXXVIII.), which was put upon the stone by Mr. Smit from a sketch prepared by Mr. Wolf under the directions of the late Sir Victor Brooke, is believed to have been taken from the mounted specimens in the British Museum.

So far as we know, no examples of this form of the Bushbuck have ever been brought to Europe alive.

November, 1899.

121. THE HARNESSED ANTELOPE.
TRAGELAPHUS SCRIPTUS (Pallas).
[PLATE LXXXIX.]

Subspecies a. Tragelaphus scriptus typicus.

Male adult. Height about 28 inches. General colour a rich dark red, passing in places into black. Head fawn-colour, with an ashy-black band extending from between the eyes to the muzzle; upper lip white at the sides; chin and inter-ramal area white; two white spots on each cheek, the lower fusing with the white of the inter-ramal area; a small white stripe running inwards from the eye, sometimes but not always present; whitish patch at base of ear; ear ashy black behind, a dark spot near the outer edge in front. Neck greyish fawn above, clouded with black towards the shoulders. Throat with two, upper and lower, white patches; area between the patches a dusky yellowish grey. Body a rich dark red at the sides, passing into black below, marked with about half-a-dozen transverse white stripes; a few white spots on the shoulders, and a large, though variable, number of white spots on the haunches; a white line, sometimes broken up into a series of spots, running longitudinally along the lower portion of the sides above the belly between the shoulder and the hind-quarters, and an upper longitudinal white stripe, sometimes long, sometimes short, running backwards from the shoulder. Tail red, with white edges and usually a black tip. Belly and chest blackish. Outer side of fore and hind legs blackish above the knees and hocks, reddish fawn below; inner sides white at the bases close up to body; a broad black band above the knee and hock; back and inner sides of the knee and front and inner side of hock white, whence a white stripe extends downwards along the inner side and anterior edge of the cannon-bone to the fetlock; fetlocks and pasterns blackish; pasterns with a large white patch in front.

Hairs on body longish. At the base of the neck there is a more or less well-defined collar of short hair passing inferiorly above the lower white neck-band. Along the back from the shoulders to the root of the tail extends a crest or mane of long hairs, black over the withers, tipped with white on the rest of the back. Horns as in preceding species.

The skull of an adult male gives the following measurements:—Basal length 8·25 inches, nose to orbit 4·75, width 3·5, horn 9·5.

Female similar to the male, but without horns, and without the black tints on the body; white markings very conspicuous.

Young like the female.

The Bushbucks of the typical section of the genus Tragelaphus appear to be spread all over Africa south of the Sahara, wherever wooded districts suitable for their mode of life are met with. But although they are all nearly similar in general structure they vary much in their markings and other minor characters, and it is an exceedingly difficult task to decide how far these differences should be regarded as specific or subspecific, or in some cases as merely individual variations. A much larger series of specimens from the various localities in the wide area over which this animal ranges than we can yet command is necessary before any certain conclusions can be arrived at on this subject. Meanwhile we propose to follow, as probably approximately correct, the view already put forward on this group by Thomas in his article on the Tragelaphi, published in the Zoological Society’s ‘Proceedings’ for 1891, merely elevating the four forms there treated of as subspecies to the rank of species. Of these four species thus recognized we have already treated of one—Tragelaphus decula, which appears to be a somewhat isolated form only met with in Abyssinia and the immediately adjacent districts. We have now come to the true T. scriptus, which, on the contrary, seems to have a very wide distribution under its various phases.

The “Harnessed Antelope,” as it is usually called in English, was first discovered in Senegal by the celebrated naturalist and traveller Adanson, who visited that Colony in the middle of the last century, and communicated many of his notes and specimens to Buffon. The latter described and figured it in his ‘Histoire Naturelle’ under the name “Le Guib” which Adanson gave as its native name in Senegal, stating that it is found in the woods and plains of the country of the Jaloufs and on the Senegal River. From Senegal also living specimens of both sexes of this Antelope were subsequently received at the Jardin des Plantes, and figured under the same name by F. Cuvier and Geoffroy St.-Hilaire in their great work upon Mammals. Pallas established his “Antilope scripta” upon Buffon’s “Guib,” stating that he had not himself met with examples of it. There can be no doubt, therefore, that this particular local form is entitled to be called Tragelaphus scriptus. Like most of the Senegalese mammals, it also occurs on the Gambia, where Whitfield, and, in more recent days, Dr. Rendall procured specimens which are now in the British Museum.

Descending the West-African coast we find the same species also recorded from Liberia, where Herr Büttikofer and his fellow-explorers of that Republic, as recorded by Dr. Jentink, met with it in many localities and obtained a good series of specimens of it for the Leyden Museum.

In his ‘Reisebilder aus Liberia’ Büttikofer tells us that this Antelope is universally known to the Liberians as the “Red Deer,” and is found wherever the forest is interspersed with meadows and plantations. Its palatable meat is often brought to the market in Moravia. It is the more easily obtained by the hunter because it is by no means shy, and often comes to feed into the vegetable-gardens adjoining the planters’ dwellings. It is also frequently caught alive, and does well in captivity.

Pel, another well-known collector for the Leyden Museum, obtained for that institution examples of this Antelope on the Gold Coast, and there are specimens of it in the British Museum from Fantee, and from Mount Victoria in the Cameroons. We may therefore consider it established that the typical form of Tragelaphus scriptus is found all along the wooded districts of Western Africa from the Senegal River to the Cameroons. But as we proceed further south soon after this a slight alteration in the characters of this Antelope begins to appear.

Hamilton Smith, writing in Griffith’s ‘Animal Kingdom’ in 1827, was the first to notice differences in the specimens of this species from the Congo, which had been sent home by Tuckey’s Expedition, and proposed to name the Congo form Antilope phalerata. M. Pousargues, who has recently published an excellent essay on the Mammals of French Congo-land, informs us that only one of three specimens of this Antelope received at Paris from that country presented the special difference upon which Hamilton Smith mainly based his species—that is, the absence of the longitudinal white stripe on the shoulder and flanks,—and states his opinion that this character is of no systematic value. This opinion is supported by the fact that in one of the two bucks, referred to later on, from Senegambia, now living in the Society’s Gardens, the stripe in question is very conspicuous, whereas in the other it is faintly defined and very short. It is significant, too, that the latter animal is the larger and apparently the older of the two. Hence it is not unlikely that the stripe tends to disappear in old individuals and that the type of T. phaleratus was nothing but an aged example of T. scriptus. However that may be, our knowledge of the Congo form is too incomplete to admit of our regarding it as distinct from the typical Senegambian T. scriptus.

Further to the south, in the valley of the Chobé and Upper Zambesi, T. scriptus is again met with, but under a modified form, which may for the present be regarded as a distinct subspecies. This animal was first discovered by Mr. Chapman on the Botletlie River, and subsequently on the Chobé by Mr. Selous, who described it in his ‘Hunter’s Wanderings’ and in the Zoological Society’s ‘Proceedings’ for 1881. Mr. Selous, in response to an inquiry on this point, kindly informs us that he has never seen a skin either of adult or young of the Chobé Bushbuck marked with an upper longitudinal white stripe; and we learn from his published observations on this animal, and from the skins of it that are now in the British Museum, that the females and young are much less strongly striped and spotted with white than are the adult males.

This does not appear to be the case as regards the typical T. scriptus; and although the entire absence of the upper white band in the form from the Chobé suggests the possibility of identity between it and the form from the Congo, we know nothing of the characters of the females and young of the latter to justify us in assigning the name phaleratus to the subspecies first figured and described by Mr. Selous. The animal for which we propose to adopt Mr. Pocock’s name T. scriptus ornatus may be described as follows:—

At the end of our list of synonyms of the typical form of this Antelope it will be observed that we have added, with a mark of doubt, Tragelaphus gratus of Rochebrune’s ‘Faune de la Sénégambie,’ upon which Dr. Trouessart has based his Tragelaphus obscurus. All that can be said of Rochebrune’s figure is that, if correctly drawn, it cannot have been taken from Limnotragus gratus, which is at once recognizable by its elongated hoofs, and that it is more likely to have been based on an example of the present species. But we have already on more than one occasion alluded to the untrustworthiness of Dr. Rochebrune’s work, and think it hardly worth while to discuss the subject further.

The Harnessed Antelope is frequently brought alive to Europe from the ports on the West Coast of Africa and does nicely in captivity. It was well represented in the great Knowsley Menagerie, where it frequently bred. In May 1845, as we learn from the ‘Gleanings,’ there was at Knowsley a herd of two males and four females, of which three were then expected to produce young. Both sexes were figured by Waterhouse Hawkins on the 28th plate of that work. Several specimens of it were sold at the dispersal of the Knowsley Menagerie in 1851.

The Zoological Society of London has exhibited specimens of this handsome Antelope ever since its gardens were instituted, but it does not appear to have bred there. Dr. Percy Rendall, F.Z.S., brought home a fine male from the Gambia in 1890, and in the following year a pair was presented to the Society by Sir R. B. Llewelyn, K.C.M.G., the Governor of that Colony. In Mr. Smit’s illustration of this species (Plate LXXXIX.) the figures of the male and female were taken from the Zoological Society’s specimens; the young one in the front was drawn from a specimen from Fantee, in the British Museum.

November, 1899.

122. THE CAPE BUSHBUCK.
TRAGELAPHUS SYLVATICUS (Sparrm.).
[PLATE XC. Fig. 2.]

General colours much as in the other species of this section, and especially as in T. roualeyni, but without any traces of transverse stripes either in the adult or immature stages. Adult male of a deep dark brownish black, with only a few small white spots on the haunches and one or two on the shoulders. Younger males reddish brown on the rump and sides, almost greyish brown above; a narrow white spinal stripe over the rump and about nine white spots on the haunches, with a line of white spots extending inferiorly above the belly. Horns 12 or 14 inches in length, rarely attaining to 16 inches.

Female. Without horns, of a light reddish brown, as in the immature male, with white spots on the hind-quarters, and sometimes a lateral line of white spots above the belly.

The Bushbuck, so named by the Dutch settlers at the Cape from its being an inhabitant of the forest (bosch), was first made known to science by the famous Swedish traveller and naturalist Sparrman, who obtained specimens of it during his expedition to the Cape, and described it on his return home in the ‘Acta Holmiensia,’ and subsequently in the several editions of his ‘Travels.’ Sparrman specially mentions Groot Vaders-bosch and Houtniquas-bosch, in the south of the Colony, as the districts in which he had encountered this Antelope.

The Bushbuck was also described and figured by Buffon in the ‘Supplement’ to his ‘Histoire Naturelle’ from information received from Allamand and first published in Schneider’s edition of the ‘Histoire Naturelle’ issued at Amsterdam. It was likewise mentioned by Thunberg, Lichtenstein, and other earlier writers, who adopted Sparrman’s scientific name for it. Little of moment, however, is added to our knowledge of its habits and range until we come to Harris’s illustrated volume on the ‘Game-Animals of Southern Africa,’ published in 1840. In this work a special chapter is devoted to an account of the sport of hunting the Bushbuck along with the Grysbok and the Blue Duiker, which are all figured together in the twenty-sixth plate of Harris’s ‘Portraits.’ This author discourses eloquently on the first-named Antelope as follows:—

Messrs. Nicolls and Eglington, in their ‘Sportsman in South Africa,’ inform us that at the present time the Bushbuck is still plentiful in all the maritime divisions of the Cape Colony and Natal, wherever there are any considerable belts of thick bush. It is not usual to find more than a pair of adults together, and the animals seldom emerge from the impenetrable bush except at night-time, when they come out into the open glades to feed. The bare patches on the neck alluded to by Harris are explained by these authors to be caused by the horns being constantly thrown backwards along the neck, which thus becomes denuded of hair.

In the neighbourhood of Port Elizabeth we are told, and in other districts of the Colony, the Bushbuck is very strictly preserved, and battues are held every year about Easter-time, when large drives of them take place. Numbers of natives are employed with the assistance of dogs to beat the wooded kloofs, and to drive the game towards the guns, which are placed in the narrow necks of the valleys. Excellent sport is thus obtained.

When we proceed as far up the coast as the Limpopo the Cape Bushbuck, as we shall presently more fully explain, is replaced by Cumming’s Bushbuck (Tragelaphus roualeyni). In this Bushbuck, as Mr. Selous informs us, the adult rams are of a brownish grey, often without a sign of any spots, and the adult females of a dark red with a few white spots. The young rams, however, are of a red colour and a good deal spotted, and have a few faint transverse stripes, while the young females are also more spotted than the old ones. If, however, Mr. Selous continues, we examine the Bushbucks found on the Zambesi to the east of the Victoria Falls, the adult rams are in colour like the young rams of the Limpopo, being of a dark red thickly spotted on the haunches, shoulders, and sides with small white spots, with three or four faint white stripes down each side. On the other hand, if we take the Bushbucks found on the banks of the Chobé and in the country to the west of the Victoria Falls we find an animal of a very dark red colour, most beautifully spotted with large white spots, and ornamented in some cases with as many as eight well-defined white stripes and a long mane of white hair. This Bushbuck of the Chobé is that which, following Mr. Pocock, we have called Tragelaphus scriptus ornatus (v. s. p. 110).

On the whole, there seems to be little doubt that there are intermediate forms between what we have here treated of as three species of Bushbuck, but the question is by no means finally settled, and waits for a better and larger series of specimens than is at our command before a satisfactory conclusion can be arrived at.

The Cape Bushbuck does well in captivity, and is frequently brought to Europe. Living specimens of it may often be seen in the principal Zoological Gardens. The first example possessed by the Zoological Society of London appears to have been acquired in April 1859, when it was presented by the late Sir George Grey. Other specimens arrived in 1881 and 1887, and the Society has lately received good examples of it presented by its excellent correspondents Mr. J. E. Matcham of Port Elizabeth and Mr. W. Champion of Natal.

Our illustration of this species (Plate XC. fig. 2) was prepared by Mr. Smit from one of the specimens living in the Zoological Society’s Gardens in May of the present year.

November, 1899.

123. CUMMING’S BUSHBUCK.
TRAGELAPHUS ROUALEYNI (Cumming).
[PLATE XC. Fig. 1.]

Subspecies a. Tragelaphus roualeyni typicus.

Subspecies b. Tragelaphus roualeyni fasciatus.