Part 41

In Mr. Arthur H. Neumann’s recently published volume on ‘Elephant-Hunting in East Equatorial Africa’ there will be found an account of his adventurous journey to Lake Rudolph, during which, on more than one occasion, he made his camp for some months at El Bogoi, a place situated east of the Loroghi Mountains, in rather higher than 1° N. lat., which was a favourite station for elephants. While at this place in October 1895 Mr. Neumann, accompanied by his native attendants, made an excursion over the Loroghi range, and encamped close to the edge of the open country on their western slope, at an elevation reckoned to be about 5500 feet above the sea-level, at a place called in the map attached to his narrative Kisima. Here, on taking a stroll into the open, he “shot a brace” of what he at first supposed to be Grant’s Gazelles; but on examination he found that they differed from the Grant’s Gazelles of the other side of the range, and of everywhere else that he had been, “in having longer hair, and dark bands on the sides,” while the “shade on the back” was also deeper than in the common kind. On one of the skins thus obtained and presented to the British Museum (see fig. 80), Thomas has based his subspecies “Gazella grantii notata.”

For much the same reasons as in the case of G. petersi, that is because no intermediate examples were yet known, we decided, when drawing up our Synopsis of Gazelles (above, p. 69), to give a separate heading to this form.

Skin of the Banded Gazelle.]

But since our Synopsis was prepared, Lord Delamere has sent home some skins which are, to a certain extent, intermediate between G. granti and G. notata in the development of the dark markings, and which, therefore, support Thomas’s original view that the latter should be looked upon as a subspecies of the former. Yet, on the whole, Lord Delamere’s skins are more like G. granti than G. notata, especially in the character of their fur, so that they may be provisionally assigned to the older known form, leaving the exact status of G. notata to be settled when further materials are available.

Thomas stated, in his original description of G. notata, that this Gazelle had also been obtained by Mr. H. S. H. Cavendish, that traveller having supposed that he recognized in the typical skin of G. notata a Gazelle which he had met with during his journey to Lake Rudolph. This supposition, however, has been proved to be mistaken, as the Gazelle in question when brought home turned out to belong to G. thomsoni--an animal up to that date unknown to Mr. Cavendish. Mr. Neumann, the donor of the typical skin of G. notata to the British Museum, remains, therefore, the only sportsman who has yet met with this handsome form, concerning which we hope to receive further information before long.

September, 1898.

THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL. LXX.

Wolf del. J. Smit lith. Hanhart imp.

Soemmerring’s Gazelle.

GAZELLA SOEMMERRINGI.

Published by R. H. Porter.]

103. SOEMMERRING’S GAZELLE.

GAZELLA SOEMMERRINGI (CRETZSCHM.).

Antilope soemmerringii, =Cretzschmar=, Atl. Rüpp. Reise, p. 49, pl. xix. (♂) (1826); =J. B. Fisch.= Syn. Mamm. p. 462 (1829); =Rüpp.= N. Wirb. Abyss. p. 25 (1835); =Less.= Compl. Buff. x. p. 287 (1836); =Waterh.= Cat. Mamm. Mus. Z. S. (2) p. 40 (1838); =Laurill.= Dict. Univ. d’H. N. i. p. 616 (1839); =Gerv.= Dict. Sci. Nat. Suppl. i. p. 261 (1840); =Less.= N. Tabl. R. A. Mamm. p. 176 (1842); =Rüpp.= Verz. Senck. Mus. p. 38 (1842); =Sund.= K. Vet.-Ak. Handl. 1842, p. 201 (1843); =Wagn.= Schr. Säug. Suppl. iv. p. 415 (1844), v. p. 405 (1855); =Reichenb.= Säug. iii. p. 114, pl. xxxiv. fig. 205 (1845); =Schinz=, Syn. Mamm. ii. p. 403 (1845); =Sund.= Pecora, K. Vet.-Ak. Handl. 1845, p. 266 (1847); =id.= Hornschuch’s Transl., Arch. Skand. Beitr. ii. p. 262; id. Reprint, p. 82 (1848); =Schinz=, Mon. Antil. p. 7, pl. v. (1848); =Gieb.= Säug. p. 308 (1853); =Heugl.= Faun. roth. Meer, Peterm. Mitth. 1861, p. 16; =id.= Ant. u. Buff. N.O.-Afr. (N. Act. Leop. xxx. pt. 2) p. 7 (1863); =id.= N.O.-Afr. ii. p. 102 (1877); =Hartm.= Z. Ges. Erdk. Berl. iii. p. 254 (1868).

Gazella soemmerringii, =Jard.= Nat. Libr. (1) vii. p. 215, pl. xxviii. (1842); =Gray=, List Mamm. B. M. p. 161 (1843); =id.= Ann. Mag. N. H. (1) xviii. p. 231 (1846); id. Knowsl. Men. p. 5 (1850); =id.= P. Z. S. 1850, p. 114; =id.= Cat. Ung. B. M. p. 59 (1852); =Temm.= Esq. Zool. Guin. p. 193 (1853); =Scl.= P. Z. S. 1867, p. 817, pl. xxxvii. (yg.); =Fitz.= SB. Wien, lix. pt. 1, p. 158 (1869); =Blanf.= Zool. Abyss. p. 260 (1870); =Scl.= P. Z. S. 1871, p. 701 (Suez?); =Gray=, Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 39 (1872); =id.= Hand-l. Rum. B. M. p. 107 (1873); =Brooke=, P. Z. S. 1873, p. 549; =Scl.= List An. Z. S. (8) p. 142 (1883); =Lort Phillips=, P. Z. S. 1885, p. 932; =Jent.= Cat. Ost. Leyd. Mus. (Mus. Pays-Bas, ix.) p. 137 (1887); id. Cat. Mamm. Leyd. Mus. (op. cit. xi.) p. 169 (1892); =Thos.= P. Z. S. 1891, p. 210; =W. Scl.= Cat. Mamm. Calc. Mus. ii. p. 161 (1891); =Scl.= P. Z. S. 1892, p. 100; =Swayne=, P. Z. S. 1892, p. 305; =Jent.= Cat. Mamm. Leyd. Mus. (Mus. Pays-Bas, xi.) p. 169 (1892); =Ward=, Horn Meas. (1) p. 108, (2) p. 150 (1896); =Lyd.= Horns and Hoofs, p. 236 (fig., head) (1893); =Swayne=, P. Z. S. 1895, p. 305 (habits); id. Seventeen Trips to Somaliland, p. 314 (1895); =Donaldson Smith=, P. Z. S. 1895, p. 868 (Juba R.); =Hoyos=, Zu den Aulihan, p. 179, pl. x. fig. 6 (1895); =Thos.= Ann. Mus. Genov. (2) xvii. p. 107 (1896); =Elliot=, Publ. Chicago Mus., Zool. i. p. 122 (1897).

Antilope soemmerringii berberana, =Matsch.= SB. nat. Freund. 1893, p. 65; =Rhoads=, P. Ac. Philad. 1896, p. 519.

VERNACULAR NAMES:--Arab or Harab at Massowa, Bus-Adu in Danakil, Om-Sabah in Arabic (Heuglin); Aoul of Somalis (Swayne).

Size large, height at withers 35½ inches in an old male of the Somali subspecies. General colour very pale fawn, and very uniform everywhere, as there are neither light nor dark lateral bands nor any pygal bands. Central facial band black or blackish fulvous, contrasting markedly with the white lateral facial streaks. Dark facial streaks also black, but very narrow. Sides of muzzle black, continuous with the central facial band. Back of ears whitish, margined and tipped with black. White of rump very broad and extended, projecting far into the body-colour, which it broadly shuts off from the tail. The latter is white basally, black tufted terminally. Knee-brushes present, whitish or fawn.

Basal length of skull 8·85 inches, greatest breadth 4·2, muzzle to orbit 5·4.

Horns long, nearly circular in section, heavily ringed. In the typical subspecies they are but little divergent for their basal half, but then curve widely outwards above, their tips being again abruptly hooked inwards so as to point almost directly towards each other. In the Somali subspecies their length is greater and their divergence is quite even, not increasing above, so that their upper portions are not nearly so widely separated; their tips also hook rather forwards, and not so directly inwards.

Female similar to the male, but the horns much thinner and less rough, though almost as long as those of the male. In both of the subspecies their curvature is closely similar to that found in their respective males.

Hab. Coastland of Red Sea from Suakin south to Tajurah (subspecies typica); Northern Somaliland (subspecies berberana).

This fine Gazelle was one of the many discoveries made in North-east Africa by the great traveller and naturalist Edouard Rüppell, and was first described and figured by Cretzschmar in the ‘Atlas’ which illustrated the zoological portion of Rüppell’s ‘Reise.’ The species was dedicated to Ritter Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring, on the occasion of that savant attaining the fiftieth year of his Doctorate--an event which was celebrated by the Senckenbergian Naturalists’ Society of Frankfort-on-the-Main on the 7th of April, 1828. The original specimens were procured by Rüppell on the eastern slope of the Abyssinian coast-range, and were deposited along with all his other collections in the Senckenbergian Museum. In a résumé of his knowledge of the East-African Antelopes contained in a subsequent work on the Vertebrates of Abyssinia, Rüppell tells us that he only met with this species in the bush-clad valleys of the Abyssinian coast, but that it was said to occur also on the large island of Dahalak off Massowah. It was generally observed in small families, which, however, sometimes congregated into larger herds.

Skull and horns of Gazella soemmerringi typica (male).

(From a specimen in the British Museum.)]

Heuglin, another good authority on the animals of North-east Africa, informs us that this Antelope extends along the coast of the Red Sea from 20° N. latitude southwards to the Danakil country, and that it is also found in valleys of the Baraka and Atbara in the interior, and extends up to the neighbourhood of Berber, but is not so plentiful here as in the coast-districts.

Dr. W. T. Blanford, who accompanied the British Abyssinian Expedition of 1867–68 as naturalist, found this Antelope abundant on the coast of the Red Sea near Annesley Bay and Massowah, but states that it never ascends the hills. It was met with principally in the low bush and acacia-scrub in herds varying in size from a few individuals up to one hundred or more. A very large number, he adds, were shot by the sportsmen of the Expedition, who found the flesh excellent eating.

Fig. 82b.