Part 41

When we go further north into German East Africa, the Eland appears to be not quite so abundant, although Herr Matschie mentions it as found in Usagara, and it was seen by Neumann between the Pangani River and Irangi during his recent journey, besides having been met with in Ugogo by Speke and Grant in former years.

In British East Africa it would appear to be more prevalent again, although somewhat local. Mr. Jackson, in his volume on ‘Big Game,’ writes as follows concerning its range and habits in that country:—

“The striped variety of the Eland is the only one found in British East Africa. It is known to the Swahilis as ‘Mpofu,’ and is decidedly a local beast. It is seen more often in open bush and country thinly wooded with mimosa-trees than quite out in the open. In 1887 it was plentiful round Taveta, where I have seen as many as from sixty to seventy in one herd. In the open bush country west of Mount Kisigao Elands are fairly numerous. Other places in which they are found are the park-like country below Ndi in Teita; the open country east of Ndara and north of Mount Maungu; and the Siringeti plains. I have also seen them between Lakes Nakuro and Baringo, and again in Turkwel, in the Suk country. As a rule they go about in herds of from four or five up to fifteen or twenty. Sometimes two or three bulls will be found together, but very often an old bull is met with quite by himself.”

Mr. S. L. Hinde has kindly favoured us with the following field-notes of his recent experience of the Eland in British East Africa:—

“Having just returned from British East Africa, where I have spent the greater part of the last five years, the following field-notes may be of some interest to you. The Eland of East Africa, which, so far as I have observed, has well-marked white stripes on its back and haunches, is both rare and wary. It is reported to have suffered severely from the rinderpest in the early nineties. In the bush-country within 200 miles of the coast, and more particularly in the neighbourhood of what is known as the Taro Desert, Elands have always been met with, and are even now comparatively numerous. But the heads from the herds in this neighbourhood, if one may judge by the few specimens which have been obtained, have usually small and misshaped horns. Outside the bush-country, on the Mkindu and the Athi Plains, herds of the Eland are occasionally met with, but there is no doubt that they migrate from one district to another. It is commonly reported that Elands were never seen on the Athi Plains until a few years ago, but at present, during the months of June, July, and August, Elands are generally to be found in the vicinity of the Athi river. In these months of the years 1898 and 1899 there were, to my knowledge, two or three herds of Elands on the Athi Plains. The largest herd that I observed contained over 60 head, but I have never seen a really good pair of horns from this neighbourhood.”

Count Teleki, as we are informed by Herr v. Höhnel in his narrative of the first expedition to Lake Rudolf, met with the Eland on the Likipia plateau, north of Mount Kenya, where, according to a letter addressed by v. Höhnel to Sclater, they encountered a herd of about 170. But we are not aware of any evidence of its being found further north in British East Africa or in any part of Somaliland. Here, therefore, we appear to have reached its furthest limits in this direction, but further west, in the Valley of the Nile, there is good evidence of the existence of this form of Antelope in much higher latitudes.

The famous explorer Baron von Heuglin was the first traveller who recorded the existence of an Eland in the districts of the Upper Nile, although v. Pruyssenaer (as Heuglin states) had previously recognized its occurrence on the Bahr el-Abiad and Bahr-el-Sobat. But Heuglin, having obtained a pair of Eland’s horns from the Upper White Nile, about 7° N. lat., referred them, on account of their large size, to a new species, “Boselaphus gigas.” He gives a figure of these horns and states that they measure 35 inches in length, and show a distance of 32 inches between the two points. We have thought it advisable to reproduce Heuglin’s figure of this remarkable pair of horns (see fig. 117, p. 208). In a subsequent work (‘Reise in das Geb. d. Weiss. Nil’) Heuglin adds that his Taurotragus gigas is found in pairs and singly in the forests of the Djur River and amongst the Arol negros.

The well-known traveller Schweinfurth, in his ’Im Herzen von Afrika,’ also alludes more than once to the existence of the Eland on the upper confluents of the White Nile. In the first place, he met with it in Bongoland, where he says that it resorts to the drier slopes of the hills during the rains, and descends to the valleys in the winter months. In the second volume of his narrative, Schweinfurth mentions it again, and gives two figures of the horns of what he calls the Central-African Eland, of two very different forms. Schweinfurth states that the skin is plainly striped, and that this is certainly no mark of youth, because he has seen very old examples which had about fifteen narrow parallel stripes, about a finger in breadth, on both sides. It is quite evident, therefore, that the Eland of this part of Africa belongs to the striped form. It may be identical with T. o. livingstonii, but, as Heuglin has given it a name, we will allow him the benefit of the doubt for the present, and will call this northern striped form Taurotragus oryx gigas until further investigations have been made.

Before closing our systematic account of the Eland we must say a few words respecting some curious horns which were at first ascribed to a new and unknown Antelope, but are now generally admitted to be nothing more than abnormal horns of the cow Eland. These horns were first brought before the scientific world by Dr. Günther, who exhibited a pair of them at a meeting of the Zoological Society in 1889, and stated that they had been obtained on the frontiers of Natal. Dr. Günther’s opinion was that they belonged to an unknown Antelope of the Tragelaphine group, but under the uncertainty as to what form they were most nearly allied, he proposed to designate the presumed species Antilope triangularis. Through the courtesy of the Zoological Society of London, and with Dr. Günther’s kind permission, we are able to reproduce here the illustration of these horns (fig. 118, p. 209) which accompanied Dr. Günther’s paper in the Society’s ‘Proceedings.’

Writing of these horns in 1891, Mr. Lydekker was so convinced of their essential difference from those of any other known Antelope that he proposed to raise the animal that bore them to generic rank under the name “Doratoceros.”

Some years subsequently, in 1896, Sclater obtained, on loan, a fine pair of horns of nearly similar character from Mr. Justice Hopley, of Kimberley, and, after comparing them with the typical pair of Antilope triangularis in the British Museum, came to the conclusion that they must have belonged to the same species of Antelope. Mr. Justice Hopley’s pair were not quite so long, rather more incurved backwards, and less broadly spread; they were also smoother at the base, showing but slight traces of corrugations. When exhibiting these horns to the Zoological Society, Mr. Sclater stated that he could see nothing whatever to negative the opinion, already prevailing amongst other naturalists, that these horns were abnormal horns of the cow Eland, which had grown into a lengthened form without making the ordinary twist usually observable in that species and in other Tragelaphs. It is right to add that Mr. Lydekker himself is now also of the same opinion, and has stated (‘Horns and Hoofs,’ p. 260) that these horns “are almost certainly abnormal specimens of those of a cow Eland.”

As we have already stated, living examples of the Eland were received in Holland from the Cape as long ago as about 1783, when they were described by Vosmaer and others as being in the menagerie of the Prince of Orange. In England the first examples of this species of which we can find any record were those which constituted the herd in the celebrated menagerie of Edward, 13th Earl of Derby, President of the Zoological Society of London. There is, unfortunately, little information available as to the origin and history of this celebrated herd, but from some notes published by Lord Derby in the first volume of the ‘Gleanings,’ we learn that the first specimens received were obtained for him by Mr. Burke from the Cape in November 1842, and consisted of two males and a female. The female first bred in August 1843, and produced young in 1844, 1845, and 1846, at which date Lord Derby remarked that he had in his possession four males and two females of this Antelope. At the dispersal of the Derby Menagerie by auction in October 1851 the Knowsley herd consisted of two males and three females. These passed into the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London, having been selected out of the whole stock by the Council of the Society in virtue of a bequest by Lord Derby to that Society of any group of animals in his collection that they might prefer.

The original stock of the Zoological Society’s herd of Elands consisted, therefore, of these five animals received by the Society in December 1851. Of these an old female had been born at Knowsley in 1846, and the other individuals, two males and two females, had been imported by Lord Derby in 1850. These animals throve well in their new quarters and began to increase rapidly. As will be seen by the list given in Wolf and Sclater’s ‘Zoological Sketches’ (vol. i.), two calves were born in 1853, three in 1854, four in 1855, and four in 1856. The first additions made to the original stock were a female presented by the late Sir George Grey in April 1859, and a male received in exchange from Viscount Hill in November of the same year. Since the date of its first institution, the Zoological Society’s herd of Elands has never failed, although occasionally reduced to somewhat small dimensions. Nearly every year one or more Eland-calves have been born in the Gardens, and care has been taken to lose no opportunity of introducing fresh blood whenever the occasion has offered. At the present moment, however, we regret to say, in consequence of the great difficulties now prevailing in obtaining living examples of the larger Antelopes of Africa, the Eland is represented in the Society’s Antelope-House by only two specimens, namely, a male, about six years old, bred in the Jardin d’Acclimatation of Paris, and received on October 12, 1898, and a young female, purchased of Herr Reiche, of Alfeld, in April 1899. The latter is more rufous in colouring and shows slight traces of stripes, which, however, she may probably lose when quite adult.

From these two specimens our illustration of Taurotragus oryx typicus (Plate XCVIII.) has been prepared by Mr. Smit.

Besides the Zoological Society’s animals, the only herd of Elands that we are aware of now existing in this country is that belonging to the Duke of Bedford, the President of the Zoological Society of London, which is kept in the beautiful Park at Woburn, along with a splendid series of Deer and other Ungulates. Through the kindness of His Grace we have been furnished with the following particulars concerning this herd, which now consists of fourteen individuals. Three of these are adult females, two of which were purchased from dealers, and the third from the Zoological Society of London, in whose Gardens it was bred. The adult male was purchased of Herr Reiche, of Alfeld. Five young males and two females have been bred at Woburn up to the end of 1899. Three calves, one male and two females, have been born at Woburn since the commencement of the present year.

Allusion has already been made to the Elands possessed by the late Roland, Viscount Hill, who, about the year 1861, possessed a fine herd of these animals. When visited by Sclater about that date, Lord Hill’s stock consisted of three males and seven females, which were kept at his Lordship’s residence Hawkstone, in Shropshire. They were the produce of individuals principally purchased by him from the Zoological Society, and were kept in grazing paddocks in Hawkstone Park. Unfortunately, a few years later Lord Hill lost his interest in these animals and got rid of them.

About the same period John, 2nd Marquis of Breadalbane, likewise purchased a herd of Elands, which, however, we believe, was not maintained long after the Marquis’s death in 1862.

In almost all the Zoological Gardens of the Continent also the Eland is a well-known object of interest, and in many of them, until the last few years, has thriven well and produced its kind; but, as already mentioned, the supply of Elands from abroad has recently much decreased, and at the present time there is a great difficulty in keeping our herds of Elands in Europe up to the mark by the necessary introduction of fresh blood.

One of the chief ornaments of the Mammal-Gallery in the British Museum is the mounted pair of Livingstone’s Elands obtained by Mr. F. C. Selous in Mashonaland in 1883. The male (as Mr. Selous informs us) was shot near Sadza’s Kraal, west of Marandalla’s, a station on the main road from Salisbury to Umtali, in July of that year, and the female near Salisbury in the following October. The male stands 67¾ inches high at the withers, and carries a pair of horns 22½ inches in length in a straight line; the female is 57½ inches in height, and has horns 27 inches in length. In both these animals the lateral stripes are well defined, and there are no black patches above the knee on the fore leg of the male, though in the female the patches are slightly visible. These specimens are fair representatives of Taurotragus oryx livingstonii, and have been figured as such in our illustration (Plate XCIX.), prepared by Smit. But it is right to add that it appears that the skins have apparently shrunk slightly in drying, as in his measurements of the male specimen in question, lately given in the ‘Great and Small Game of Africa’ (p. 426), Mr. Selous states that the height of this animal, “taken on the naked carcase after the skin had been removed,” was 69 inches. Moreover, in former days there were probably still larger specimens, as such reliable authorities as Barrow and Harris agree in stating that the old male Elands were known to attain a height of 6½ feet at the withers.

There are also in the National Collection other skins and skulls of the Eland obtained by Mr. Selous, and a number of other specimens, amongst which we may specify a skull and horns of a female from Nyasaland, presented by Sir Harry Johnston, and a skull and horns from the district of Kilimanjaro, presented by Mr. F. J. Jackson in 1892. We may remark that examples of the Eland of the White Nile (the problematical T. o. gigas) are much wanted to complete the series in the National Collection, besides which specimens from other definite localities in Eastern Africa and Angola would be very acceptable.

April, 1900.

133. THE DERBIAN ELAND.

TAUROTRAGUS DERBIANUS (Gray).

Boselaphus oreas, Gray, Cat. Ost. B. M. p. 145 (1847).

Boselaphus derbianus, =Gray=, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. xx. p. 286 (1847); =id.= Silliman’s Amer. Journ. v. p. 279 (1848); =id.= P. Z. S. 1850, p. 144; =id.= Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (2) viii. p. 226 (1851); =id.= Knowsl. Menag. pl. xxv. (1850); =Gerv.= H. N. Mamm. ii. p. 201, pl. xxxviii. (1855); =Fitz.= SB. Ak. Wien, lix. pt. 1, p. 179 (1869).

Oreas derbianus, =Gray=, Knowsl. Menag. p. 27 (1850); =id.= Cat. Ung. B. M. p. 136 (1852); =Gerr.= Cat. Bones B. M. p. 245 (1862); =Winwood Reade=, P. Z. S. 1863, p. 169, pl. xxii.; =id.= ‘Savage Africa,’ p. 398 (cum tab.) (1864); =Gray=, Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 47 (1872); =id.= Hand-l. Rum. p. 118 (1873); =Rochbr.= Faune Sénégamb. p. 120, pl. vii. fig. 2 (1883); =Jent.= Cat. Ost. Leyd. Mus. (Mus. Pays-Bas, ix.) p. 141 (1887); =Ward=, Horn Meas. pp. 165–168 (1892), p. 211 (1896); Lyd. Horns and Hoofs, p. 260 (1893); =id.= Royal Nat. Hist. ii. p. 273 (1894); =Pousargues=, Ann. Sci. Nat. iv. p. 81 (1897); =Scl. P. Z. S.= 1898, p. 349 (horns).

Antilope (Taurotragus) derbianus, =Wagn.= Sehr. Säug., Suppl. v. p. 439 (1855).

Taurotragus derbianus, =Lyd. & Bryden=, in Ward’s Great and Small Game of Afr. p. 439, pl. xii. fig. 2 (1899).