Part 58

Subspecies b. C. D. CASTANEUS.

Rather larger than C. d. typicus, and ears apparently rather longer. Colour deep chestnut all over, the dorsal line deep black, the metacarpals and metatarsals brown. Superciliary stripe chestnut, indistinct, far less bright than in C. d. typicus, and the general colour of the head darker and duller.

Skull with the muzzle of the ordinary slender elongate shape, the distance from the anterior edge of the orbit to the muzzle exceeding the zygomatic breadth. Teeth decidedly larger than in the typical form.

Dimensions of the type, an immature female:--Height at withers 19 inches, ear 2·4, hind foot 8.

Skull: basal length (c.) 6 inches, greatest breadth 3·3, orbit to muzzle 3·5.

This subspecies is based on a female specimen referred by Gray to “Cephalophus badius”; its skull has been figured by him under that name. Thomas has, however, shown that the skull of this specimen differs so much from that of typical C. dorsalis that, in spite of its external resemblance, it should be looked upon as representing a distinct subspecies; and this view we have accepted in the present work. Additional specimens will, however, be needed before its position can be satisfactorily determined. For the present, therefore, we publish all that is known about it, and trust that further specimens from different localities will clear up the precise relationship it bears to the true C. dorsalis, and also to its close ally C. leucogaster.

Hab. Cameroons.

The Bay Duiker, as this Antelope has long been called, is better known than the species which we have last spoken of and appears to have a wider distribution. At the same time it varies a good deal in the colour of its fur, both according to age and in the various localities in which it is found. Gray, who was an habitual species-maker, has, as was pointed out by Sclater in 1869, described it under three different names, based on age-changes and on slight variations in colour.

Commencing in 1846, Gray established his Cephalophus dorsalis on a specimen in the British Museum, which had been brought to this country alive by Mr. Whitfield from Sierra Leone and had died in the Surrey Zoological Gardens. In 1850 he figured the same species in the ‘Knowsley Menagerie’ from a drawing made by Waterhouse Hawkins. This drawing was probably taken from living specimens in the Knowsley Collection, also procured by Whitfield, who was a collector employed by Lord Derby. In 1852 Dr. Gray seems to have come to the conclusion that the animal figured in the ‘Knowsley Menagerie’ was not the same as the true Cephalophus dorsalis originally described from Mr. Whitfield’s specimen, and, accordingly, in his list of Ungulata Furcipeda in the British Museum, named the former Cephalophus badius, retaining the name Cephalophus dorsalis for the latter. Dr. Gray, however, did not state exactly how the two species are to be distinguished, and he afterwards united them under one heading. The typical specimen of C. breviceps was described when alive in the Zoological Gardens, and, as noticed by Gray himself, “assumed all the appearance, as it grew up, of C. badius”

As recorded by Temminck in his ‘Esquisses Zoologiques sur la Côte de Guinée,’ the well-known Dutch collector Pel met with this Antelope in Ashantee and Sierra Leone, where he states that it is found, although somewhat rarely, in the littoral forests, showing itself only at night. Two other collectors from Holland, Büttikofer and Stampfli, obtained specimens of this species on the Junk River in Liberia, which were likewise transmitted to the Leyden Museum.

Examples of this species in the British Museum were procured in Fantee by the native collector Aubinn; and we may therefore state confidently that the typical form of C. dorsalis inhabits the whole coast-region of Western Africa from Liberia to the mouth of the Niger.

When, however, we pass southwards of the delta of the Niger and arrive at the higher ground of the Cameroons the typical C. dorsalis seems to be replaced by a slightly different local form, which Thomas in 1892 characterized as a subspecies, C. dorsalis castaneus. This Antelope is rather larger than the typical form and the ears are apparently rather larger. The chestnut superciliary stripe is indistinct, far less bright than in the typical form, and the general colour of the head is darker and duller. The typical specimen of this subspecies, which is in the collection of the British Museum, is a female obtained by Crossley in the Cameroons. Besides the colour-differences just mentioned the form of the skull, which is figured in the ‘Hand-list of Ruminants’ as that of C. badius (op. cit. pl. xxx. fig. 1), is likewise peculiar. But further specimens and more information are necessary before we can decide whether it will be advisable to give the Cameroons animal the full rank of a species.

We have already mentioned the existence of a living specimen of this Duiker in the Derby Menagerie. Living specimens of it have also been received on more than one occasion by the Zoological Society of London. In 1861 an example was purchased of a dealer in Liverpool and lived more than two years in the Society’s Gardens. A second specimen, quite immature on its arrival, was purchased in February 1866 and was shortly afterwards described by Gray as Cephalophus breviceps. This was a female, and, being placed in the same compartment of the Gazelle-sheds as a male of the allied species C. rufilatus, bred with it when adult. It produced a young one in January, 1869, and died soon afterwards. A third specimen of the same Antelope was brought home from the Gold Coast and presented to the Society by Mr. C. B. Mosse, Staff-Surgeon, R.N., in October, 1869. This specimen was figured in the Zoological Society’s ‘Proceedings’ for that year (op. cit. pi. xlvi.). Mr. Mosse presented another from the same district in 1874. Since that period six other specimens of this Antelope have been acquired at different dates.

May, 1895.

27. OGILBY’S DUIKER.

CEPHALOPHUS OGILBYI, WATERH.

Antilope ogilbyi, =Waterh.= P. Z. S. 1838, p. 60, 1842, p. 129 (Fernando Po); =id.= Ann. Mag. N. H. (1) ii. p. 472 (1839), xii. p. 57 (1843); =Fraser=, Zool. Typ. pi. xix. (animal) (1849).

Cephalophorus ogilbyi, =Gray=, Ann. Mag. N. H. x. p. 267 (1842); =id.= List Mamm. B. M. p. 163 (1843).

Antilope (Tragelaphus) ogilbyi, =Less.= N. Tabl. R. A., Mamm. p. 181 (1842).

Antilope (Cephalophus) ogilbyi, =Wagn.= Schr. Säug. Suppl. iv. p. 446 (1844), v. p. 423 (1855).

Cephalophus ogilbyi, =Gray=, Ann. Mag. N. H. (1) xviii. p. 165 (1846); =id.= Knowsl. Men. p. 10, pl. viii. fig. 2 (1850); =id.= P. Z. S. 1850, p. 122; =id.= Cat. Ung. B. M. p. 83 (1852); =Temm.= Esq. Zool. Guin. pp. 194, 217 (1853); =Gerr.= Cat. Bones Mamm. B. M. p. 236 (1862); =Fitz.= SB. Wien, lix. pt. 1, p. 167 (1869); =Gray=, P. Z. S. 1871, p. 595; =id.= Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 26 (1872); =id.= Hand-l. Rum. B. M. p. 98 (1873); =Jent.= N. L. M. x. p. 20 (1887) (Liberia); =Büttikofer=, Reisebild. Liberia, ii. p. 377 (1890); =Matsch.= Arch. f. Nat. 1891, pt. i. p. 353 (Cameroons); =Jent.= Cat. Mamm. Leyd. Mus. (Mus. Pays-Bas, xi.) p. 162 (1892); =Thos.= P. Z. S. 1892, p. 422; =Lyd.= Horns and Hoofs, p. 211 (1893); =Matsch.= MT. deutsch. Schutz-geb. vi. p. 81 (1893).

Sylvicapra ogilbyi, =Sund.= Pecora, K. Vet.-Ak. Hand-l. 1844, p. 191 (1846); =id.= Hornschuch’s Transl., Arch. Skand. Beitr. ii. p. 143; Reprint, p. 67 (1848).

Size medium. General colour bright orange, becoming rather more rufous on the hindquarters. Nose brown, but otherwise the face is of the same colour as the body. Nape and sides of neck brown or blackish, but the hairs here so thin and short that the skin shows through and the general colour is but little affected. Hinder back with a marked black central dorsal streak, commencing vaguely at the withers, becoming narrower and more sharply defined posteriorly, and running on to the tail. Limbs dull yellowish, except on the phalanges, where they are brown or black.

Horns in the direct line of the nasal profile; those of male about four inches long, conical, slightly incurved, much broadened basally, their greatest basal diameter going 2½ or 3 times in their length. Female about an inch and a half in length, conical, smooth, broad at base, pointed terminally, their length not twice their basal diameter.

Skull with a very considerable convexity in the frontal region. Anteorbital fossæ shallow. Posterior palate with the three notches, median and two lateral, all at about the same level.

Dimensions:--♂. Height at withers 22 inches, ear 3, hind foot 9·4.

Skull (♂, not fully adult): basal length 7·2 inches, greatest breadth 3·5, muzzle to orbit 4·4.

Hab. Coast of West Africa, from Liberia to the Cameroons.