Part 28

Skull slenderer and more lightly built than usual; frontal narrow; its elongation medium.

Basal length 15·7 inches, greatest breadth 5·3, muzzle to orbit 12·5, facial length 16·5, breadth of forehead 3·4.

Horns shaped somewhat like an inverted bracket, a comparison that is, however, better borne out by the two following species, as in the Tora the diverging parts of the two horns start up at a slight angle with each other, instead of being in the same straight line. The horns themselves are unusually slender, and attain a length of about 19 inches.

Hab. Upper Nubia, Northern Abyssinia, and Kordofan.

The Tora or Tétel was confounded by von Heuglin and Sir Samuel Baker, its first discoverers, with the Bubal. But these two Antelopes, though alike of uniform colour, are easily distinguishable on comparison by the larger size and higher gait of the Tora and by the different shape of its horns. The Tora would also seem to inhabit more wooded and broken country than the open deserts that are the home of the allied species.

Heuglin tells us that this Antelope is found in families and herds in the valleys at the foot of Mount Takah, in the district of the Beni-Ammer Arabs, in Upper Barca, on the Anseba and Atbara and their confluents, and in the lower districts of Northern Abyssinia. He found it likewise plentiful on the sources of the Dender and Rahad, and in Galabat. It inhabits the sheltered country where there is high grass and underwood, is not particularly timid, and sometimes even stupidly bold, resorting regularly in the morning and evening to the usual pastures and drinking-places.

In his volume on ‘The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia’ Sir Samuel Baker frequently mentions the “Tétel,” as he calls this Antelope.

In August 1861, being on the banks of the Atbara, he writes:--

“The country being now bright green, the Antelopes are distinctly visible on the opposite side. Three Tétel graze regularly together in the same place daily. This Antelope is a variety of the Hartebeest of South Africa; it is of a reddish-chestnut colour, and is of about the size of an Alderney cow.”

A month later Sir Samuel tells us:--

“When about halfway to the river, as we were passing through grass about 4 feet high, three Tétel bounded from a ravine, and passing directly before us, gave me a splendid shot at about sixty yards. The Ceylon No. 10 struck the foremost through the shoulder, and it fell dead after running a few yards. This was also my first Tétel; it was in splendid condition, the red coat was like satin, and the animal would weigh about five hundred pounds live weight.”

Shortly afterwards the skin of the Tétel was taken off entire, the apertures at the neck and knees tied up, and the hide inflated and ingeniously converted into a waterproof bag, to be used for the conveyance of the flesh of the animal across the river Atbara.

In a subsequent part of his journey in the valley of the Settite, a confluent of the Atbara, Baker again records his adventures with this Antelope as follows:--

“We had hardly ridden half a mile when I perceived a fine bull Tétel standing near a bush a few hundred yards distant. Motioning to the party to halt I dismounted, and with the little Fletcher rifle I endeavoured to obtain a shot. When within about a hundred and seventy yards he observed our party, and I was obliged to take the shot, although I could have approached unseen to a closer distance had his attention not been attracted by the noise of the horses. He threw his head up preparatory to starting off, and he was just upon the move as I touched the trigger. He fell like a stone to the shot, but almost immediately he regained his feet and bounded off, receiving a bullet from the second barrel without a flinch; in full speed he rushed away across the party of aggageers about three hundred yards distant. Out dashed Abou Do from the ranks on his active grey horse, and away he flew after the wounded Tétel, his long hair floating in the wind, his naked sword in hand, and his heels digging into the flanks of his horse, as though armed with spurs in the last finish of a race. It was a beautiful course; Abou Do hunted like a cunning greyhound; the Tétel turned, and taking advantage of the double, he cut off the angle; succeeding by the manœuvre, he again followed at tremendous speed over the numerous inequalities of the ground, gaining in the race until he was within twenty yards of the Tétel, when we lost sight of both game and hunter in the thick bushes. By this time I had regained my horse, that was brought to meet me, and I followed to the spot, towards which my wife and the aggageers encumbered with the unwilling apes were already hastening. Upon arrival I found, in high yellow grass beneath a large tree, the Tétel dead, and Abou Do wiping his bloody sword, surrounded by the foremost of the party. He had hamstrung the animal so delicately that the keen edge of the blade was not injured against the bone. My two bullets had passed through the Tétel: the first was too high, having entered above the shoulder--this had dropped the animal for a moment; the second was through the flank.”

As we have already stated, both Heuglin and Baker confounded the Tora with the Bubal. In 1873 the British Museum first received specimens of this Antelope from the Bogos district west of Massowa. The keen eye of the then keeper of the Zoological Department quickly recognized the essential differences of the new species from the previously known members of the genus, and it was briefly described, first in ‘Nature’ and afterwards in the ‘Annals of Natural History.’

Head of Bubalis tora.

(P. Z. S. 1873, p. 762.)]

In December of the same year Sclater exhibited a mounted head of this Antelope at one of the meetings of the Zoological Society, from whose ‘Proceedings’ the accompanying figure of the specimen in question (fig. 2) has been borrowed by leave of the Publication Committee.

Two years later, in July 1875, a female example of this Antelope was obtained alive for the Zoological Society’s Menagerie; and in the following year, in October, a fine pair of the Tora was purchased by the Society for the sum of £100, of Mr. Carl Hagenbeck, the well-known dealer of Hamburg. These animals had been obtained along with others from the Arabs of Upper Nubia and brought out viâ Kassala and Suakim by Mr. Hagenbeck’s agents. Other specimens of the Tora from the same source reached several zoological gardens on the Continent about the same date; but we believe that they have one and all disappeared, and, so far as we know, the Tora is no longer to be seen anywhere in captivity.

There is a good pair of this Antelope in the Gallery of the British Museum mounted from skins stated to have been procured at Dembelas, in Northern Abyssinia. There are also a skeleton and other specimens from the same locality in the National Collection.

May, 1894.

THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES. PL. II.

Smit lith. Hanhart imp.

Swayne’s Hartebeest

BUBALIS SWAYNEI.

Published by R. H. Porter.]

4. SWAYNE’S HARTEBEEST.

BUBALIS SWAYNEI, SCL.