WATERBUCKS AND REEDBUCKS 495 



Nile Defassa Waterbuck 

 Kobus defassa harnieri 



Native Names: Dlnka, katambur; Bongo, boohoo; Bari, babu. 

 Kobus harnieri Murie, 1867, Proc. Zool. Soc, p. 3; colored figure and two 

 text figures. 



Range. — White Nile district east to the foot of the 

 Abyssinian highlands, south as far as the Albert Nyanza and 

 westward throughout the Bahr-el-Ghazal watershed. 



Doctor Murie in a communication to the Zoological 

 Society in 1867, concerning the travels of Baron Wilhelm 

 von Harnier on the White Nile, quotes Kaup as the authority 

 for the present race, based upon the two heads presented by 

 Harnier to the Darmstadt Museum. We have, however, 

 no further published record of Kaup's name for which 

 Murie must now stand as the only authority. Harnier lost 

 his life in the upper Nile district in attempting to rescue his 

 native gun-bearer from the charge of a wounded buffalo. At 

 the time of this catastrophe he was shooting near a Catho- 

 lic mission station some distance south of Shambe between 

 6° and 7° N. latitude, and it was from this locality presum- 

 ably that the waterbuck named for him were obtained. 



The Nile race of the defassa may be distinguished by its 

 short thin coat of hair, by the drab or hair-brown colora- 

 tion which is without cinnamon suffusion on the body, and 

 by its smaller body size and horns. It closely resembles 

 the Uganda defassa, in color and shortness of coat, but may 

 be recognized by its smaller body and shorter horns. The 

 typical race from Abyssinia has a decidedly cinnamon or 

 even rufous tinge to its coloration and has much longer and 

 more abundant hair. A newly born young secured at 

 Rhino Camp is covered with woolly hair, rather short and 

 thick, of a uniform dusky-drab, but darker on the breast 

 and the throat. The white patch on the hinder surface of the 

 hind quarters is not evident, owing to the brown of the sides 

 spreading over this area and merging with the grayish-white 

 of the inner surface and belly. The legs are slightly lighter 

 than the sides. The markings on the head and the neck 

 resemble those of the adult, but the dark snout patch is re- 

 stricted to a spot near the muzzle. 



