Part 33

“The spoor of the trapped Gazelle with the marks of the swinging stick are easily found, and the animal tracked down until in sight, when a trained greyhound will soon catch and hold it until his master comes up.

“During November and December the Gazelles are caught when fawns by trained hounds, and this is the simplest method; but it can only be practised during two months, as it takes a very good dog to catch a Gazelle when more than this age.

“During the eight days I was in the desert, though unsuccessful in trapping any, I saw several very fine specimens of Loder’s Gazelle.”

In August 1896 a fine adult living female of this Gazelle was received by the Society as a present from Mr. A. R. Birdwood, of Cairo--no doubt obtained in the same locality as that explored by Mr. Bramley. Mr. Birdwood wrote subsequently to Sclater concerning this Gazelle as follows:--

“I am pleased that you have found the Gazelle a real acquisition to your Gardens. I succeeded in securing you a very fine male the other day, but it died almost at once from the effects of the trap used by the Bedouins!

“With regard to the statement that this Gazelle does not drink water, my theory is that it may be true that water is not always obtainable where it is, and that in that case it makes shift with the succulent desert plants that are to be found even in the most arid, seemingly waterless, and barren plains! Of these desert plants, I have collected more than sixty varieties from the limestone hills of Mariout, in the arid stretches running from Wady Natron to Wady Siwa, and in the still more unfavourable ground of the dunes that intersect the road running from Fayoum to the oases of Farafseh and Dakleh. All have the same characteristic succulence, and one, known to the Bedouins as ‘broth of the Gazelle’ (which looks more like a bundle of dry thorns than anything else), is most delightfully aromatic (when snapped off) as well as succulent! These seeming deserts after a rain are plains of verdure, but in a few months return to their primitive wildness.”

So far as we know, besides the original specimens of G. leptoceros received at Paris in 1884, the female presented to the Zoological Society by Mr. Birdwood is the only example of this Gazelle that has reached the Menageries of Europe alive. By the kindness of the Zoological Society we are able to give a copy of Mr. Smit’s drawing of the head of this animal.

Front view of head of a female Loder’s Gazelle.

(P.Z.S. 1896, p. 781.)]

But the identity of the Egyptian Gazella leptoceros with the Algerian G. loderi is perhaps not yet exactly certain, although we have combined the English name of the latter with the scientific name of the former.

On comparing specimens from Tunis and Algeria with others from Egypt, the size of the former is slightly greater, the markings are even less defined than in Egyptian examples, the horns are less closely ringed, the nasal bones are markedly longer, the nasal opening is both longer and broader, and the premaxillæ articulate less broadly with the sides of the nasal bones.

An old male is 26 inches in height at the withers, and the skull-measurements of the type are:--Basal length 6·75 inches, greatest breadth 3·35, muzzle to orbit 4.

These differences seem to be quite constant, so far as we have materials for comparison, and we therefore think that as the Algerian form has had a name given to it, it may be provisionally retained as a subspecies, at least until these characters are shown to be variable. The accompanying figure, for the use of which we are indebted to the kindness of the Zoological Society, gives a side view of the skull and horns of the Algerian form.

Skull of Gazella leptoceros loderi, ♂.

(P.Z.S. 1894, p. 471.)]

Our representations of this Gazelle (Plate LXIII.) have been prepared by Mr. Smit--that of the male (front figure) from a mounted specimen in the British Museum obtained by Mr. J. I. S. Whitaker in the Tunisian Sahara, and presented by him in 1894; that of the female from the example from Egypt living in the Zoological Society’s Gardens.

In the British Museum are likewise the typical skin and horns of Gazella loderi obtained by Sir Edmund Loder in the desert about a hundred miles south of Biskra, some frontlets and horns from Biskra, presented by Mr. Rowland Ward, and a skin and skull of a female from Tunis, presented by Mr. J. I. S. Whitaker along with the male now mounted. The example of Gazella leptoceros typica sent to Sclater by Mr. Birdwood is also now in the National Collection. We have also to thank Dr. J. Anderson, F.Z.S., for the loan of a skin and skull of an old male of the Egyptian form of this Gazelle obtained near the Natron Lakes in Egypt.

May, 1898.

THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL. LXIV.

Wolf del J Smit lith Hanhart imp.

The Isabella Gazelle.

GAZELLA ISABELLA.

Published by R.H. Porter.]

94. THE ISABELLA GAZELLE.

GAZELLA ISABELLA, GRAY.

Antilope dorcas, =Licht.= Darst. Säug. pl. v. (1827)?

Gazella dorcas, =Blanf.= Zool. Abyss, p. 261, pl. i. fig. 1 (1870).

Gazella isabella, =Gray=, Ann. Mag. N. H. (1) xviii. pp. 214 & 231 (1846); =id.= Knowsl. Men. p. 4 (1850); =id.= P. Z. S. 1850, p. 113; =id.= Cat. Ung. B. M. p. 57 (1852); =Gerr.= Cat. Bones Mamm. B. M. p. 233 (1862); =Fitz. & Heugl.= SB. Wien, liv. pt. 1, p. 591 (1866); =Fitz.= SB. Wien, lix. pt. 1, p. 158 (1869); =Gray=, Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 38 (1872); =id.= Hand-l. Rum. B. M. p. 107 (1873); =Brooke=, P. Z. S. 1873, p. 539; =Huet=, Bull. Soc. Acclim. 1887, p. 65; =W. Scl.= Cat. Mamm. Calc. Mus. ii. p. 157 (1891); =Ward=, Horn Meas. (1) p. 116 (1892), (2) p. 158 (1896).