ALLEN: MAMMALS FROM THE BLUE NILE VALLEY. 325 



the present time they are quite gone from the Blue Nile, but a very 

 few yet remain on the uppermost reaches of the Dinder River, about 

 a day's march beyond Um Orug Island, as our native hunters told us. 

 According to our Arab guide who had hunted this region, one was 

 killed in 1911 on the 'mere' near El Abiad by a white hunter, who 

 mistook it at night for a Buffalo. Beyond Um Orug, at a place called 

 Hageirat, south towards the Abyssinian border a few are still to be 

 found. The Rhinoceros is protected under the present game laws of 

 the Sudan, but the few that survive are more or less in danger from 

 poaching Abyssinians. Capt. Stanley S. Flower told us at Cairo 

 that so far as he could learn there were probably not more than ten 

 or a dozen rhinos left on the upper Dinder, and that these are probably 

 not breeding for the natives report no tracks of young ones. 



Lydekker (Proc. Zool. soc. London, 1911, p. 958) recognizes the 

 Black Rhino of Somaliland as distinct under the name somaliensis, 

 but in the absence of specimens I cannot attempt to settle the identity 

 of the Sudanese animals. 



Elephas africaxus oxyotis Matschie. 



Sudanese Elephant. 



Elephas africaniis oxyolis Matschie, Sitzb. Ges. naturf. freunde Berlin, 1900, 

 p. 196. 



In reviewing the African elephants, Lydekker (1907, p. 398) con- 

 siders that the form inhaljiting the Blue Nile Valley and western 

 Abyssinia may stand as a valid race. It is characterized by Matschie 

 as having a very long and pointed lobe at the base of the ear. The 

 upper border of the ear is much rounded but the value of this char- 

 acter is still under discussion. The tusks are rather small in this race, 

 nardly above 60 lbs. 



Elephants were formerly common over the eastern Sudan, and have 

 been much hunted for their ivory. Sir Samuel Baker's accounts of 

 their pursuit and capture by the Arab hunters, mounted on agile 

 ponies and armed only with a keen-edged sword, are familiar to 

 readers of African travel. At the present time Elephants are practi- 

 cally gone from the travelled region along the northeastern bank of 

 the Blue Nile. I. C. Johnson, in 1901, hunted Elephant near the little 

 village of Omdurman above Karkoj, and although a small herd of five 

 was discovered, the animals were traveling and struck off toward the 



