Part 7

Horns of male medium or rather long, broadly lyrate, half-ringed, slightly compressed. Female hornless.

Range of the Genus. Southern Africa, northwards to Angola on the west, and to the Southern Soudan on the east.

Of this genus we are at present prepared to recognize only two species--the Common Pallah of Southern and Eastern Africa (Æ. melampus) and that of Angola (Æ. petersi). The latter may be readily distinguished from the ordinary form by having a prominent blackish mark running down the upper surface of the muzzle.

THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL. XLVIII

Wolf del, J. Smit lith Hanhart imp.

The Pallah

ÆPYCEROS MELAMPUS.

Published by R. H. Porter.]

77. THE PALLAH.

ÆPYCEROS MELAMPUS (LICHT.).

Pallah, =Daniell=, African Scenery, no. 9 (1812).

Antilope melampus, =Licht.= Reise, ii. p. 544, pl. iv. (1812); =id.= Mag. nat. Freund. vi. p. 167 (1814); =Goldf.= Schr. Säug. v. p. 1224, pl. cclxxiv. (1818); =Schinz=, Cuv. Thierr. i. p. 388 (1821); =Desm.= Mamm. ii. p. 456 (1822); =Burch.= Trav. ii. p. 301 (1824); =id.= List Mamm. pres. to B. M. p. 5 (1825) (Latakoo); =H. Sm.= Griff. An. K. iv. p. 219, v. p. 334 (1827); =Less.= Man. Mamm. p. 374 (1827); =J. B. Fisch.= Syn. Mamm. p. 462 (1829); =Smuts=, En. Mamm. Cap. p. 74 (1832); =A. Sm.= S. Afr. Quart. J. ii. p. 209 (1834); =Laurill.= Dict. Univ. d’H. N. i. p. 616 (1839); =Harr.= Wild Anim. S. Afr. p. 78, pl. xv. (1840); =Gerv.= Dict. Sci. Nat. i. p. 261 (1840); =Jard.= Nat. Misc. vi. p. 217, pl. xxix. (1842); =Less.= N. Tabl. R. A., Mamm. p. 176 (1842); =Gray=, List Mamm. B. M. p. 162 (1843); =Wagn.= Schr. Säug. Suppl. iv. p. 417 (1844), v. p. 409 (1855); =Schinz=, Syn. Mamm. ii. p. 405 (1845); =Gray=, Ann. Mag. N. H. (1) xviii. p. 231 (1846); =id.= List Ost. B. M. p. 56 (1847); =Schinz=, Mon. Antil. p. 7, pl. vi. (1848); =Gray=, Knowsl. Men. p. 6 (1850); =Peters=, Säug. Mossamb. p. 190 (1852) (Zambezi); =Temm.= Esq. Zool. Guin. p. 190 (1853); =Gieb.= Säug. p. 313 (1853); =Drumm.= Large Game S. Afr. p. 426 (1875); =Brehm=, Thierl. iii. p. 203 (1880); =Huet=, Bull. Soc. Acclim. (4) iv. p. 477 (1887).

Æpyceros melampus, =Sund.= Pecora, K. Vet.-Ak. Handl. 1845, p. 271 (1847); =id.= Hornschuch’s Transl., Arch. Skand. Beitr. ii. p. 267; Reprint, p. 87 (1848); =Gray=, P. Z. S. 1850, p. 116; =id.= Cat. Ung. B. M. p. 65 (1852); =Gerr.= Cat. Bones Mamm. B. M. p. 234 (1862); =Blyth=, Cat. Mamm. Mus. As. Soc. p. 171 (1863); =Scl.= P. Z. S. 1864, p. 101 (Uzaramo); =Kirk=, P. Z. S. 1864, p. 656 (Zambesia); =Hengl. & Fitz.= SB. Ak. Wien, liv. pt. 1, p. 590 (1866); =Fitz.= SB. Ak. Wien, lix. pt. 1, p. 157 (1869); =Gray=, Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 42 (1872); =id.= Hand-l. Rum. B. M. p. 112 (1873); =Buckl.= P. Z. S. 1876, pp. 283 & 291; =id.= op. cit. 1877, p. 454; =Heugl.= N.O.-Afr. ii. p. 103 (1877) (S. Kordofan); =Selous=, P. Z. S. 1881, p. 757; =id.= Hunter’s Wanderings S. Afr. p. 216 (1881); =Pagenst.= JB. Mus. Hamb. ii. p. 40 (1884); =Flow. & Gars.= Cat. Coll. Surg. ii. p. 272 (1884); =Johnston=, Kilimanjaro, pp. 218 & 394, fig. 47 (1886); =Noack=, Zool. JB. ii. p. 206 (1887); =Jent.= Notes Leyd. Mus. ix. p. 173 (1887); =id.= Cat. Ost. Leyd. Mus. (Mus. Pays-Bas, ix.) p. 138 (1889); =id.= Cat. Mamm. Leyd. Mus. (op. cit. xi.) p. 170 (1892); =Hunter=, in Willoughby’s E. Afr. p. 288 (1889); =Crawshay=, P. Z. S. 1890, p. 654 (Nyasa); =W. Scl.= Cat. Mamm. Calc. Mus. ii. p. 169 (1891); =Flow. & Lyd.= Mamm. p. 341 (1891); =Ward=, Horn. Meas. (1) p. 99 (1892), (2) p. 142 (1896); =Nicolls & Egl.= Sportsm. S. Afr. p. 41, pl. i. fig. 3 (1892); =True=, Pr. U. S. Nat. Mus. xv. p. 472 (1892); =Lyd.= Horns and Hoofs, p. 229 (1893); =Lugard=, E. Afr. i. p. 537 (1893); =Scl.= P. Z. S. 1893, p. 728 (L. Mweru); =Barkley=, P. Z. S. 1894, p. 132 (Pungwue Valley); =Thos.= P. Z. S. 1894, p. 145 (Nyasa); =Jackson=, in Badm. Big Game Shooting, i. pp. 285 & 306 (1894); =Lorenz=, Ann. Mus. Wien, ix., Notizen, p. 61 (1894) (Upper Limpopo); =Rendall=, P. Z. S. 1895, p. 359 (Transvaal).

“Antilope pallah, =Cuv.=,” =Gerv.= Dict. Sci. Nat. i. p. 261 (1840).

Strepsiceros suara, =Matsch.= SB. Ges. nat. Freund. 1892, p. 135 (skin, not horns).

Æpyceros suara, =Matsch.= Thierw. O.-Afr., Säug. p. 129 (1895).

Æpyceros melampus johnstoni, =Thos.= P. Z. S. 1892, p. 553 (Nyasa).

Æpyceros melampus typicus, =Thos.= l. c.

Æpyceros melampus holubi, =Lorenz=, Ann. Mus. Wien, ix., Notizen, p. 62 (1894) (“N. of Zambezi”).

VERNACULAR NAMES:--Pallah of English; Roodebok or Roibok of Dutch; Pala of Bechuanas; Napala of Matabili; Ee-pala of Makalakas; Inzero of Masubias; Umpara of Makubas; Lubondwee of Batongas; Kug-ar of Masaras (Selous); Impaya of Transvaal Shangaans (Rendall); Suare in Tette (Peters); Nswala of Nyasa tribes (Crawshay) and of East-African Swahilis (Jackson); Kulungu and Nosi near Kilimanjaro (Johnston); Om-gaba in Arabic (Heuglin).

Size comparatively large; height at the withers about 36 inches. General colour bright reddish brown, paler along the lower part of the sides. In southern specimens the colour is rather duller and browner than in northern ones, but the difference is very slight. Head dark fawn; a mark over the anterior half of the eye, chin, interramia, and upper part of throat white. Belly pure white. In front of the eye, on the side of the face, there is generally, though not always, in southern specimens an indistinct darker patch, but this is never present in northern ones. A black patch occasionally present on the crown. Ears of medium length, their outer sides fawn, with the terminal third black. Limbs like the back, a lighter ring round the pasterns just above the hoofs; a pair of prominent black tufts of longer hairs on the distal extremity of the hind cannon-bones (whence the name of the species). Tail fairly long, its upperside with a narrow black line along it, extending more or less on to the back, its sides fawn basally, white terminally.

Skull as above described. The dimensions of a male skull are:--Basal length 10·3 inches, greatest breadth 4·4, muzzle to orbit 6·1.

The horns are particularly graceful, lyrate, convex forwards below, concave above, evenly spreading. In length, in the south, good specimens may attain about 18 or 20 inches in a direct line, and in the north more, up to about 21 or 22 inches, the largest recorded being 23. But in the intermediate districts, Nyasa, Zambesia, and Gazaland, they are much shorter, fully adult horns being often only 14 inches in length.

Female similar to the male, but without horns.

Hab. Southern and Eastern Africa, from Bechuanaland to Southern Kordofan.

The first account of the Pallah seems to have appeared in one of the early numbers of a work called Daniell’s ‘Illustrations of African Animated Nature and Scenery,’ published in London in 1812. The author of the letterpress, however, did not give it a scientific name, believing that it might be the “Kob” of Buffon, or an allied species. At about the same date Prof. Lichtenstein, who had met with this animal during his journeyings in Southern Africa from 1803 to 1806, published a description and figure of it in his ‘Reise nach südlichen Afrika’ under the name Antilope melampus. This description, with additional particulars, was repeated in the same author’s classical monograph of the genus Antilope, published in 1814, and his name, taken from the black tufts of short hair at the back of the hind legs just above the foot (which are clearly shown in our figures), has been employed, almost universally, for this species by subsequent writers. Lichtenstein met with his specimens near Klip Fontein in Namaqualand, where it was found to occur in small herds of five or six individuals. In 1812 the celebrated African traveller Burchell likewise met with the Pallah in Bechuanaland, and secured the first specimens which arrived at the British Museum.

Little more was added to our knowledge of this beautiful Antelope until the publication of Harris’s ‘Portraits of the Game and Wild Animals of Southern Africa’ in 1840. Harris devotes his fifteenth plate mainly to the illustration of the “rare and graceful Pallah,” which he states “first gladdens the sight of the traveller in Southern Africa upon the elevated districts north of Latakoo.” Here in the wooded slopes and valleys that environ the mountain-ranges of Kurrichane and Cashan it was met with in families of from twelve to twenty individuals of both sexes.

Harris, with all his experience, could recall to his memory “few objects more picturesque than the graceful figures of a wandering herd of these Antelopes dancing and bounding through the thousand stems of the acacia-groves in all the poetry of motion.” To these wooded districts Harris considered the Pallah to be restricted, not a single specimen having been observed in the open country. The flesh of the Pallah he characterizes as “tender and palatable,” although “rather dry,” like that of most Antelopes.