Part 38

Damalis tiang, =Heugl.= Ant. u. Büff. N.O.-Afr. (N. Act. Leopold. xxx. pt. ii.) p. 22, pl. 1. fig. 1 (head) (♂) (1863); =Fitz.= SB. Wien, lix. pt. 1, p. 181 (1869); =Matsch.= SB. nat. Freund. Berl. 1892, p. 136 (distribution).

Damalis tiang-riel, =Heugl.= tom. cit. p. 23, pl. ii. fig. 9 (horns) (♀); =Fitz.= loc. cit.

Damalis senegalensis, =Heugl.= tom. cit. p. 22; =Gray=, Ann. Mag. N. H. (3) iv. p. 296 (1859) (Bahr-el-Ghazal, Petherick); =Baker=, Ismailia, pp. 68, 74.

Antilope senegalensis, =Emin=, Reise-Briefen, p. 144 (Magungo) (?).

VERNACULAR NAMES:--Tiang and Tian (Heuglin).

Size rather smaller than that of the Korrigum. General colour purplish red; the face, a line beneath the eye, another along the nape and back brown or black; front of the limbs and tip of the tail deep black.

Skull with a comparatively short nasal region, the nasal bones themselves unusually short and broad. Measurements (♀):--basal length 13·8 inches, greatest breadth 5·75, muzzle to eye 10·2.

Horns as in the Korrigum; those of a female 20·5 inches in length over the curve.

The colour-characters above given are taken from Heuglin’s description and figure, as no skin has been seen by us. A skull obtained by Consul Petherick on the Bahr-el-Ghazal has, however, furnished the cranial dimensions.

Hab. Sennaar, Kordofan, and Bahr-el-Ghazal.

The Tiang, as the well-known German traveller and naturalist Theodor von Heuglin proposed to call this Antelope, after its native name, is a representative form of the Korrigum in the upper valley of the Nile, and, so far as we are acquainted with it at present, agrees in all essential respects with its West-African ally, except in its slightly smaller bulk, and some differences in the black markings on the face and limbs. The Tiang, Topi, and Korrigum have been until lately generally regarded as conspecific; but in 1892 Herr Paul Matschie, of the Royal Natural History Museum of Berlin, came to the conclusion that previous authors had been in error in uniting the present animal and its allied forms of West and East Africa respectively under one head, and that they should be distinguished as different species. We follow Herr Matschie’s lead on this question, and have little doubt that his views will ultimately prove to be correct, although, from the great scarcity of specimens of all these Antelopes in European collections, it is not possible at present to arrive at a positive decision.

Skull of Damaliscus tiang, ♀.]

The Stockholm Museum appears to have been the first to receive examples of this Antelope; but Sundevall referred them first of all to the Sassaby (Bubalis lunata), and, when he found that this was quite wrong, named them Bubalis koba, supposing them to be identical with the West-African Korrigum. Sundevall’s specimens were received from Sennaar, and are accurately described in his classical memoir on the “Pecora.”

As already mentioned, v. Heuglin met with this Antelope during his lengthened explorations on the Upper Nile and its affluents. He described it in his memoir on the Antelopes and Buffaloes of North-east Africa (published in 1863 in the ‘Nova Acta’ of the Leopoldino-Carolinian Academy) as Damalis tiang, and tells us that it is one of the commonest Antelopes on the Sobat, Ghasal, and Kir rivers. He gives a coloured figure of its head. Whether v. Heuglin’s Damalis tiang-riel, described in the same memoir (based on some horns from the Bahr el Abiad), is referable to the Tiang is not quite certain, but Sclater, who has examined the horns upon which the species was founded, now in the Naturalien-Cabinet of Stuttgardt, believes them to be so.

The only other explorer of these distant regions who has sent home examples of the Tiang is, so far as we know, Petherick, from whom skulls of an immature male and an adult female of this Antelope were received by the British Museum in 1859. The latter are represented in the accompanying figure (fig. 8).

Besides Petherick, Sir Samuel Baker appears to have met with the Tiang during his journey along the Upper Nile (see ‘Ismailia,’ i. pp. 68–74); and the Antilope senegalensis of Emin Pasha (‘Reise-Briefen,’ p. 144), which he encountered near Magungo, on the Albert Nyanza, may probably be referable to this species.

January, 1895.

12. THE TOPI.

DAMALISCUS JIMELA (MATSCH.).

Damalis senegalensis, =Scl.= P. Z. S. 1886, p. 176 (Lamu); =Noack=, Zool. JB. ii. p. 208 (1887); =Scl.= P. Z. S. 1890, p. 354 (woodcuts of head and horns, excl. all synonyms, which mostly belong to D. korrigum and D. tiang); =Kirk=, ap. =Scl.= l. c. p. 357, footnote (distribution); =Ward=, Horn Meas. p. 64, fig. (head) (1892).

Damalis jimela, =Matsch.= SB. nat. Fr. Berl. 1892, p. 135.

Bubalis jimeru, =Lyd.= Horns and Hoofs, p. 203 (1893).

Alcelaphus senegalensis, =Lugard=, E. Africa, i. p. 532, pl. p. 448 (head) (1893).

Senegal Antelope, =Willoughby=, East Afr. p. 283 (Tana River).

VERNACULAR NAMES:--Jimela of Uniamwezi (Matschie); Topi, Tope, or Topee of Swahili; Nemira of Uganda (Lugard).

Size small, height at withers 43–44 inches. Fur very short and close, but mingled with it there are numerous patches of longer hairs, so that a somewhat brindled appearance is produced. General colour a peculiar purplish brown, blackish on face and chin, shoulders, and round the upper fore legs and thighs, but these darker markings are not really black and are not sharply defined. Hams scarcely lighter than the rest. Limbs and feet without dark patches, except that the backs of the pasterns are black. Fur on face directed upwards, from the extreme tip between the nostrils up to the horns, without break. Tail reaching just to the hock, its terminal half black-crested.

Skull comparatively small, with an unusually long nasal region; the nasal bones very long and narrow. Basal length (♀) 13·3 inches, greatest breadth 5·2, muzzle to orbit 9·5.

Horns as in the Korrigum, but shorter and slenderer; those of a female 16·4 inches in length.