Part 44

THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL. XI.

Wolf del. Smit lith. Hanhart imp.

The Brindled Gnu.

CONNOCHÆTES TAURINUS.

Published by R. H. Porter]

16. THE BRINDLED GNU.

CONNOCHÆTES TAURINUS (BURCH.).

Antilope gnu, var., =Licht.= Mag. nat. Freund. Berlin, vi. p. 166 (?).

Kokoon, =Daniell=, Afr. Scenery, p. 37 (1820).

Antilope taurina, =Burchell=, Travels, ii. p. 278 (1824); =id.= List Quadr. pres. to B. M. p. 7 (1825) (Maadji Mts.); =Fisch.= Syn. Mamm. p. 476 (1829); =Schinz=, Syn. Mamm. ii. p. 447 (1845); =Gieb.= Säug. p. 299 (1859).

Catoblepas taurinus, =Ham. Sm.= Griff. Cuv. An. K. iv. p. 369, v. p. 368 (1827); =Fisch.= Syn. Mamm. p. 642 (1830); =Smuts=, Enum. Mamm. Cap. p. 94 (1832); =A. Sm.= S. Afr. Quart. J. ii. p. 233 (1834); =Less.= Compl. Buff. x. p. 305 (1836); =Gray=, List Mamm. B. M. p. 154 (1843); =Sund.= Pecora, K. Vet.-Ak. Hand-l. 1844, p. 205 (1846); =id.= ibid. Hornschuch’s Transl., Arch. Skand. Beitr. ii. p. 156; Reprint, p. 80 (1848); =A. Sm.= Ill. Zool. S. Afr. pl. xxxviii. (♀ & yg.) (1849) =Fitz.= SB. Wien, lix. pt. 1, p. 182 (1869); =Brehm=, Thierl. iii. p. 290, fig. (animal) (1880).

Catoblepas gorgon, =Ham. Sm.= Griff. Cuv. An. K. iv. p. 371, v. p. 369 (1827); =Fisch.= Syn. Mamm. p. 643 (1830); =A. Sm.= S. Afr. Quart. J. ii. p. 233 (1834); =Less.= Compl. Buff. x. p. 306 (1836); =Harris=, Wild Anim. S. Afr. pl. iv. (1840); =Gray=, List Mamm. B. M. p. 154 (1843); =id.= Ann. Mag. N. H. (1) xviii. p. 232 (1846); =id.= P. Z. S. 1850, p. 139; =id.= Knowsl. Men. p. 20 (1850); =Temm.= Esq. Zool. Guin. p. 195 (1853); =Sclater=, P. Z. S. 1864, p. 103 (Uzaramo, Speke); =Kirk=, P. Z. S. 1864, p. 660 (Zambesia); =Fitz.= loc. cit.; =Drummond=, Large Game S. Afr. p. 425 (1875); =Selous=, P. Z. S. 1881, p. 764 (distribution); =id.= Hunter’s Wanderings S. Afr. p. 226 (1881); =Bryden=, Kloof and Karroo, p. 293 (1889).

Antilope gorgon, =Wagn.= Schr. Säug. Supp. iv. p. 474 (1844), v. p. 448 (1855); =Schinz=, Syn. Mamm. ii. p. 446 (1845); =Peters=, Säug. Mozamb. p. 192 (1852).

Connochætes gorgon, =Gray=, Cat. Ung. B. M. p. 121 (1852); =Gerr.= Cat. Bones Mamm. B. M. p. 243 (1862).

Gorgon fasciatus, =Gray=, Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 43 (1872); =id.= Hand-l. Rum. B. M. p. 114 (1873).

“Butragus corniculatus, Blyth, MS.,” =Gray=, Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 43 (1872).

Connochætes gnu, =Hunter=, in Willoughby’s East Africa, p. 288.

Connochætes taurinus, =Scl.= List An. Z. S. (8) p. 150 (1883); =Flow. & Gars.= Cat. Ost. Coll. Surg. p. 275 (1884); =Jent.= Cat. Ost. Leyd. Mus. (Mus. Pays-Bas, ix.) p. 139 (1887); =Crawshay=, P. Z. S. 1890, p. 663 (Nyasa); =Flow. & Lyd.= Mamm. p. 336 (1891); =Nicolls & Egl.= Sportsm. S. Afr. p. 47, pl. iii. fig. 8 (head) (1892); =Ward=, Horn Meas. p. 72, fig. (horns) (1892); =Jent.= Cat. Mamm. Leyd. Mus. (Mus. Pays-Bas, xi.) p. 170 (1892); =Lyd.= Horns and Hoofs, p. 205, fig. 42 (head) (1893).

Catoblepas reichei, =Noack=, Zool. Anz. 1893, p. 153 (Upper Limpopo).

VERNACULAR NAMES:--Blue Wildebeest of English colonists (Selous); Bastard or Blauw Wildebeeste of Dutch colonists (Harris); Kokoong of Bachapins (Burchell); Kokoon of Bechuanas (Harris); Nyumbo in Zambesia (Peters & Kirk); Kaop and Baas of Namaquas and Hottentots (Harris); Imbutuma of Kaffirs (Drummond); Ink[=o]ne-kn[=o]e of Matabilis; Ee-vumba of Makalakas; Numbo of Masubias; Minyumbwe of Batongas; Unzozo of Makubas (Selous); Ink[=o]ne-k[=o]ne of Swazis (Rendall).

Height at withers about 48 inches.

Fur short and close, with peculiar vertical lines of differently directed hairs on the sides of the neck and body, whence the epithet “Brindled.” General colour dull grey, lighter and more tinged with rufous on the rump and limbs. Face (except a paler area between the eyes), chin, dorsal and throat manes deep black. Tail long, its vertebræ almost reaching to the hock; its upper surface coloured like the rump, its under surface and the long tuft black.

Lower part of face and lacrymal region heavily tufted, the hairs directed downwards; the short ones of the terminal inch on the tip of the muzzle, however, pointed upwards.

Skull large and heavy, with a long muzzle. That of an old male measures as follows:--basal length 18·1 inches, greatest breadth 7·7, muzzle to orbit 13·3.

Horns placed so that the hinder edge of their palm is little more than level with the back of the skull; the palm itself comparatively low, smooth, small in comparison with the enormous palm of C. gnu. Beyond the palm the basal two-thirds of the horn points directly outwards, while the ends are curved upwards, forwards, and inwards. A fine pair of horns will measure 26 or 28 inches between the outer sides of the curves of the two horns.

Hab. Eastern Africa, from the Vaal River northwards through Zambesia, Nyasaland, and German East Africa to the north of Kilimanjaro.

The Brindled Gnu, although, as it seems, previously observed by Lichtenstein in Bechuanaland, was first actually obtained by the celebrated African traveller Burchell, who went far into the interior of the country in 1811 and 1812. In June of the latter year, when encamped at the great Khosi Fountain in Bechuanaland, as he tells us in the second volume of his ‘Travels,’ an example of a “new species of Antelope” was brought in by his hunters. Being well acquainted with the White-tailed Gnu of the Cape Colony, Burchell at once recognized it as a second species of that genus. Burchell pointed out its differences from its southern representative very clearly, and added a scientific Latin diagnosis in a footnote. He called it Antilope taurina, because its horns resembled those of an Ox more than those of any other Antelope. The half-bred Hottentots, he observes, give it the name of the Bastaard Wildebeest, while the Bechuanas call it Kokūn or Kokūng. Altogether Burchell obtained five specimens of this Antelope, one of which (a female), shot in the following October near the Maadji Mountains, was, as we learn from his “List of Quadrupeds,” presented to the British Museum in 1817, and seems to have formed the basis of his technical description.

Two years previous to the actual publication of Burchell’s description, however, the Brindled Gnu had been figured in Daniell’s ‘Sketches of African Scenery’ under the name of the “Kokoon.”