Part 21

Antilope (Bubalus) picta, =Laurill.= Dict. Univ. d’H. N. i. p. 625 (1861).

Antilope (Cephalolophus) picta, =Gieb.= Säug. p. 323 (1853).

Cemas picta, =Oken=, Lehrb. Nat. iii., Zool. p. 729 (1816).

Damalis picta, =J. Brooke=, Cat. Mamm. p. 64. (1828).

Boselaphus pictus, =Blainv.= Bull. Soc. Philom. p. 75 (1816); =Desm.= Mamm. ii. p. 471 (1822); =Lesson=, Man. Mamm. p. 384 (1827); =Gerv.= Dict Sci. Nat., Suppl. i. p. 266 (1840); =Less.= N. Tabl. R. A., Mamm. p. 181 (1842).

Portax picta, =Less.= Compl. Buffon, x. p. 304 (1836); =Gray=, List Mamm. B. M. p. 154 (1843); =Jardine=, Nat. Libr. xxii. p. 182, pl. xvi. (1845); =Wagner=, Schreb. Säug. Suppl. iv. p. 467 (1844); =id.= op. cit. v. p. 450 (1855); =Reichenb.= Säug. iii. p. 148 (1845); =Hutton=, Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, xv. p. 150 (1846); =Gray=, Cat. Ost. B. M. p. 59 (1847); =Horsf.= Cat. Mamm. E.-I. Comp. p. 170 (1851); =Jerdon=, Mamm. India, p. 272 (1867); =Fitz.= SB. Ak. Wien, lix. pt. 1, p. 181 (1869); =McMaster=, Notes on Jerdon’s Mamm. p. 122 (1870); =Kinloch=, Large Game Shooting, i. p. 55 (1876); =Brehm=, Thierl. iii. p. 251, fig. (1880); =Sterndale=, Mamm. Ind. p. 476 (1884); =Kinloch=, Large Game Shooting, p. 93 (1885); =Jent.= Cat. Ost. Leyd. Mus. (Mus. Pays-Bas, ix.) p. 141 (1887); =id.= Cat. Mamm. Leyd. Mus. (Mus. Pays- Bas, xi.) p. 173 (1892); =Percy=, Badminton Big Game Shooting, ii. p. 353 (1894).

Antilope albipes, =Erxl.= Syst. R. A. p. 280 (1777); =Gatterer=, Brev. Zool. pt. i. p. 81 (1780); Zoogn. iii. p. 411 (1814).

Boselaphus albipes, =Desm.= Nouv. Dict. d’Hist. N. (2) ii. p. 199, pl. xxxiii. fig. 2 (1816).

Antilope leucopus, =Zimm.= Spec. Zool. Geogr. p. 541 (1777); =Forst.= Zool. Ind. p. 39 (1795); =id.= Descr. Anim. p. 377 (1844).

Damalis risia, =H. Sm.= Griff. An. K. iv. p. 363 (1827); =Elliot=, Madras Journ. x. p. 226 (1839).

Damalis (Portax) risia, =H. Sm.= Griff. An. K. v. p. 366 (1827).

Tragelaphus hippelaphus, =Ogilby=, P. Z. S. 1836, p. 138; =Rüpp.= Verz. Senck. Mus. iii. pt. 2, p. 181 (1839).

Nyl-ghau, =Wm. Hunter=, Phil. Trans. lxi. p. 170 (1771).

White-footed Antelope, =Penn.= Syn. p. 29, pl. vi. (1771); =id.= Quadr. i. p. 74, pl. vii. (1781); =id.= op. cit. ed. 3, p. 83, pl. xiii. (1793).

Vernacular Names:—Nil, Nilgao (♂), Nilgai (♀); Roz Rojh, Rojra in Hindustani; Rú-i in Dakhani, Mahratti, and Guzrati; Guraya, Gond; Murim (♂), Susam (♀), in Ho Kal; Mánú-potú in Tamil; Mairu Maravi, Kard-Kadrai, Canarese (Blanford).

Male. About four feet six inches in height at the withers. General colour of the head iron-grey, due to the hairs being black at the base and white at the extremities; nose, neck, and cheeks tinted with black; whitish grey above the eye; two small white cheek-spots generally traceable. Lips and chin white; a large white patch at the upper extremity of the throat; inter-ramal area also white. Ears greyish white, blacker behind towards the extremities, and furnished with two black spots on the outer edge in front. Upper parts of the body iron-grey, like the head; lower portion, chest, and belly black, except a median ventral white streak; groin, inner side of thighs above, and subcaudal area of rump pure white, the latter emphasized on each side by a black vertical streak on the buttocks. Tail white below and at the sides, grey above; tuft white at the base, black at the tip. Fore and hind limbs black inside and outside, except for two large white spots on the front and outer sides of the pasterns and on the outer and inner sides of the fetlocks; fetlock-spot of hind leg sometimes extending right round the front to form a complete half-ring; the corresponding spots on the fore legs much smaller, the outer obsolete. A long tuft of black hair on the throat below the white patch; a short hog-mane on the nape formed of stiff hairs, whitish at the base, blackish at the ends; parting of hair on the withers; behind this point a spinal mane of longish black hairs extends to nearly the middle of the back and is represented as far as the root of the tail by a narrow stripe of short black hairs.

Female. Without horns. Smaller and slighter than the male and of a fawn or tawny hue throughout, but with the same white patches and markings as in the male, the fetlock and pastern spots being very conspicuous and set off with black. A short hog-mane on the nape, but no tuft on the throat.

Young male. Like the female in colour.

Measurements of an adult male skull:—Basal length 16·3 inches, greatest breadth 5·75, muzzle to orbit 10, horn 8·5.

Horns usually from 8 to 9 inches long, with a basal girth of about 8 inches, and rarely reaching a length of 11·75 inches, with a basal girth of 9·5.

Hab. The Peninsula of India from the base of the Himalayas to the south of Mysore; North-west Provinces, Eastern Punjab, Guzerat, and the Konkan; but not extending to the Indus on the west, nor into Eastern Bengal, nor into Malabar. Entirely absent from the countries to the east of the Bay of Bengal.

The Asiatic division of the Tragelaphine group, which, in the existing stage of the Earth’s fauna, is represented only by the present species, is nearly as different in its structure as it is in its geographical range from its African brethren, being at once distinguishable by its short hind limbs, untwisted horns, bovine nose, and hypsodont molars, not to mention its very different style of colour. The Asiatic form might, in fact, be more naturally arranged as constituting a Subfamily of itself, but we are content to follow recent authorities who have associated this animal with the more typical Tragelaphs of Africa.

The “Nilgai” (said by some authorities to be more correctly written “Nilgau,” from nil or lil, blue, and gau, cow) was first introduced into scientific literature by Pallas in his memoir on the genus Antilope published in 1766. Pallas’s “Antilope tragocamelus,” as he called this species, was based partly upon Ray, who quoted from Gesner, and partly on the description of Dr. James Parsons, F.R.S., who, in the forty-third volume of the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ published in 1745, gave a very fair description of this animal from a living male specimen “brought,” as he tells us, “from Bengal, and shown in London.” There can be no doubt as to the identity of Parsons’s “Quadruped,” whatever we may say regarding the less accurate descriptions of Ray and Gesner, and it follows, consequently, that “tragocamelus” must be used as the earliest and most correct specific name of the Nilgai.

In the supplement to his memoir on the genus Antilope published in 1777, besides A. tragocamelus, Pallas introduced into his list an Antilope picta, founded upon Pennant’s “White-footed Antelope.” On referring to Pennant’s description and figure of this animal in his ‘Synopsis of Quadrupeds,’ there can be no doubt whatever that they likewise refer to the Nilgai. They were taken, as the author informs us, from a pair of animals living at Clermont in 1770. Following Pallas’s second name, a large number of authorities, as will be seen by our list of synonyms, have used pictus and picta as the specific name of the Nilgai; but, as we have already pointed out, tragocamelus is prior in point of date, and being also unquestionably applicable, should have the preference.

Erxleben’s name “albipes” and Zimmermann’s “leucopus,” both founded on Pennant’s “White-footed Antelope,” have likewise been proposed for the present species, but are also both later in date. Again, in 1827, Hamilton Smith adopted “risia” as the specific name of the Nilgai on account of some fancied objection to the term picta. But in this change few have been found to follow him. Finally, in 1836, Ogilby proposed to alter the name of the Nilgai to hippelaphus, because he thought it was the true Hippelaphus of Aristotle. This is possibly the case, but it does not necessitate the suggested change of the specific term.

As regards the generic name of the Nilgai, we have fortunately only two to choose from—Boselaphus of De Blainville, published in 1816, and Portax of Hamilton Smith, proposed in 1827. Of these two, according to the rules of Zoological Nomenclature, we employ the oldest; and the scientific name of the Nilgai consequently becomes Boselaphus tragocamelus, as was first adopted by Sclater in 1883.

Before proceeding further we must call attention to the excellent account of the Nilgai read before the Royal Society in 1774 by the great physiologist and physician William Hunter and published, along with an excellent figure of the animal by Stubbs, in the 61st volume of the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ from which we make the following extracts:—

“Among the riches which of late years have been imported from India may be reckoned a fine animal, the Nyl-ghau; which, it is to be hoped, will now be propagated in this country, so as to become one of the most useful, or at least one of the most ornamental beasts of the field. It is larger than any ruminant of this country, except the ox; its flesh probably will be found to be delicious; and, if it should prove docile enough to be easily trained to labour, its great swiftness, with considerable strength, might be applied, one would think, to valuable purposes.