Part 55

J. Smit del et lith. Hanhart imp.

Harvey’s Duiker.

CEPHALOPHUS HARVEYI.

Published by R. H. Porter.]

23. HARVEY’S DUIKER.

CEPHALOPHUS HARVEYI, THOS.

Cephalolophus natalensis, =Noack=, Humboldt, v. pt. 9, p. 6, fig. 5 (animal) (1886); =Thos.= P. Z. S. 1892, p. 419 (in part, nec A. Smith).

Cephalophus nigrifrons, =True=, Pr. U. S. Nat. Mus. xv. p. 476 (1892) (Taveta) (nec Gray).

Cephalophus harveyi, =Thos.= Ann. Mag. N. H. (6) xi. p. 48 (1893); =Lyd.= Horns and Hoofs, p. 210 (1893); =Jackson=, Badm. Libr. Big Game Shooting, i. pp. 167, 285, 308 (1894); =Thos.= Ann. Mus. Genov. (2) xv. p. 6 (1895) (Somali).

Size and general coloration almost exactly as in C. natalensis, but with a brown or blackish blaze on the face as in C. nigrifrons, extending from the nasals to the occiput, and expanding on the forehead. Feet slender; hoofs not specially elongated.

Skull much roughened and swollen in the frontal region; muzzle rather short and conical; median notch of palate but little deeper than the lateral ones.

Horns (♂) conical, very thick at the base, their greatest basal diameter going barely two and a half times in their length, which in an old individual is 3·1 inches.

Dimensions:--Skull, basal length 5·9 inches, greatest breadth 3, muzzle to orbit 3·3.

Hab. British East Africa (Kilimanjaro district) and Southern Somaliland.

In Harvey’s Duiker we have a third species of the smaller-sized section of this group of Duikers which, although, like the two preceding, of nearly uniform colour as regards the body, has a distinct black blaze on the face, in which character it resembles C. nigrifrons of the West Coast of Africa. So closely allied, however, are all the Duikers of the present section that, as will be seen from our list of synonyms, Harvey’s Duiker was associated first of all with C. natalensis and afterwards with C. nigrifrons, before it was recognized by Thomas as having good claims to constitute an independent species. Thomas took his characters, which were published in the ‘Annals of Natural History’ in 1893, from a head obtained by Mr. F. J. Jackson in the Kilimanjaro district some years ago, and subsequently presented to the British Museum. In his chapter on “Game Districts and Routes,” in the first volume of ‘Big Game Shooting,’ we find that Mr. Jackson has mentioned the present species as met with along with the elephant in the dense and almost impenetrable forests near Taveta. At Mr. Jackson’s suggestion Thomas appropriately dedicated the present species to Sir Robert Harvey, whose repeated expeditions to East Africa have made us so well acquainted with the animals of that district.

Head of Harvey’s Duiker.

(From Mr. Jackson’s specimen.)]

On re-examining the specimens at the British Museum, Thomas discovered that a skin obtained many years ago by Sir John Kirk near Malindi, on the coast of British East Africa, and previously referred erroneously to C. natalensis (owing to its having lost the fur off its face), likewise belongs to this species, which, as Mr. Jackson has informed us, does occur in a patch of forest about one day south-west of Malindi.

There can be little doubt also that the Black-fronted Antelope obtained by Dr. W. L. Abbott near Taveta during his expedition of 1888–89, of which we have already spoken, and now in the National Museum of the United States at Washington, should be referred to C. harveyi. Mr. True provisionally determined it as C. nigrifrons, not having specimens of that Antelope from the western coast to compare it with, and has given us an excellent description of it in his memoir on Dr. Abbott’s mammals.

More recently, again, this species has been obtained by Capt. Bottego in South Somaliland, as mentioned in Thomas’s report on the mammals presented by that sportsman to the Museo Civico at Genoa.

Our figure of Harvey’s Duiker (Plate XVII.) has been prepared by Mr. Smit from Sir John Kirk’s specimen in the British Museum, the head in the same collection obtained by Mr. Jackson having been used where Sir John Kirk’s specimen is imperfect.

May, 1895.

THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL. XVIII.

Smit lith. Hanhart imp.

Fig. 1. The Black-fronted Duiker.

CEPHALOPHUS NIGRIFRONS.

Fig. 2. Ogilby’s Duiker.

CEPHALOPHUS OGILBYI.