Part 57

Hab. Gaboon.

The White-bellied Duiker is another discovery of Dr. Gray’s, made, as in the case related in the former article, on a specimen obtained from the interior of a stuffed example of Tragelaphus euryceros, received from Mr. DuChaillu. We may therefore fairly put down the locality of the specimen as Gaboon, to which district of Western Africa both of Mr. DuChaillu’s great journeys were confined. As in the former case also, the present species was described in the ‘Annals of Natural History’ for 1873, in a supplementary paper to Dr. Gray’s revision of the species of the present genus published in 1871. To what extent, however, the present is different from the allied species must remain uncertain until further specimens have been obtained, which, so far as we are aware, has not yet been the case.

The typical example of Cephalophus leucogaster is probably a female and is quite immature, with the milk-molars still in position and the third molar still below the bone, and it is difficult to arrive at a definite conclusion from such a specimen. At the same time, as Thomas has shown in his article on the genus Cephalophus, published in 1892, it is not possible, in the present state of our knowledge, to refer the specimen to any described species. The black dorsal band distinguishes it from C. nigrifrons and other preceding species, and the white hams and under surface from all the forms of the next following species--C. dorsalis--to which, perhaps, it most closely approximates. On the whole, therefore, we can at present only say that C. leucogaster has been established on a young specimen of a species of which the adult form is not yet known to us.

May, 1895.

THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES. PL. XIX.

Smit lith. Hanhart imp.

Fig. 1. The Red-flanked Duiker.

CEPHALOPHUS RUFILATUS.

Fig. 2. The Bay Duiker.

CEPHALOPHUS DORSALIS

Published by R. H. Porter.]

26. THE BAY DUIKER.

CEPHALOPHUS DORSALIS, GRAY.

Subspecies a. C. D. TYPICUS.

Cephalophus dorsalis, =Gray=, Ann. Mag. N. H. (1) xviii. p. 165 (1846); =id.= List Ost. Sp. B. M. p. 146 (1847); =id.= Knowsl. Men. p. 10, pl. vii. (animal) (1850); =id.= P. Z. S. 1850, p. 123; =id.= Cat. Ung. B. M. p. 84 (1852); =Temm.= Esq. Zool. Guin. pp. 194, 218 (1853); =Scl.= P. Z. S. 1869, p. 594, pl. xlvi.; =Murie=, P. Z. S. 1869, p. 595 (anatomy); =Fitz.= SB. Wien, lix. pt. 1, p. 166 (1869); =Gray=, P. Z. S. 1871, p. 597, pl. xlv. (animal); =id.= Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 27 (1872); =id.= Hand-l. Rum. B. M. p. 96 (1873); =Scl.= List Anim. Z. S. (8) p. 147 (1883); =Jent.= N. L. M. x. p. 20 (1887) (Liberia); =id.= Cat. Ost. Leyd. Mus. (Mus. Pays-Bas, ix.) p. 132 (1887); =Büttikofer=, Reisebild. Liberia, ii. p. 377 (1890); =Jent.= Cat. Mamm. Leyd. Mus. (Mus. Pays-Bas, xi.) p. 162 (1892); =Thos.= P. Z. S. 1892, p. 420; =Matsch.= Mitth. deutsch. Schutz-geb. vi. p. 81 (1893); =Lyd.= Horns and Hoofs, p. 211 (1893).

Antilope (Cephalophus) dorsalis, =Wagn.= Schr. Säug. Suppl. v. p. 424 (1855).

Cephalophus dorsalis typicus, =Thos.= l. s. c.

Cephalophus badius, =Gray=, Cat. Ung. B. M. p. 84 (1852); =Gerr.= Cat. Bones Mamm. B. M. p. 236 (1862); =Gray=, P. Z. S. 1871, p. 595; =id.= Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 26 (1872); =id.= Hand-l. Rum. B. M. p. 94 (1873).

Cephalophus breviceps, =Gray=, P. Z. S. 1866, p. 202, pl. xx. (animal).

Subspecies b. C. D. CASTANEUS.

Cephalophus dorsalis castaneus, =Thos.= P. Z. S. 1892, p. 421.

Subspecies a. C. D. TYPICUS.

Size medium. Ears extremely short and broad. General colour bright chestnut-rufous, with a dark mesial stripe running from the nose to the tail, only interrupted at the crest, which is sometimes rufous. Centre line of face brown; superciliary streaks bright rufous. Crest variable, either black, mixed black and rufous, or wholly rufous. Dorsal stripe becoming absolutely black on the back, sometimes sharply defined throughout, sometimes broadening out on the withers into an ill-defined band passing down the shoulders towards the fore legs. Under surface, inner sides of limbs, and back of hams rufous like the sides; a black or blackish longitudinal patch present in the sternal region. Fore limbs brown, from the shoulder downwards, hind limbs from just above the heel. Tail black above throughout, the black covering nearly the whole breadth of the tail, white beneath terminally.

Horns placed about in the same straight line as the nasal profile, those of male about 2·8 inches long, slender, tapering, not thickened or roughened basally, the basal diameter going nearly five times in the length.

Skull with a remarkably short conical muzzle, the distance from the anterior rim of the orbit to the muzzle less than the zygomatic breadth. Anteorbital fossæ of medium depth. Mesial notch of palate about ⅕ inch in advance of the lateral ones.

Dimensions:--♀ (not fully adult). Height at withers 15 inches, ear 1·8, hind foot 6·7.

Skull: basal length (c.) 5·5 inches, greatest breadth 3·2, orbit to muzzle 3.

Hab. West Africa, from Sierra Leone to the Gold Coast, replaced in the Cameroons by C. d. castaneus.