656 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



the National Museum some thirty specimens of skins and 

 skulls from the Loita, Kapiti, and Athi Plains, the northern 

 slopes of Mount Kenia and Taveta on the southwest flank 

 of Kilimanjaro in British East Africa; from Gondokoro, 

 Uganda; and Mashonaland, Southern Rhodesia. Other 

 specimens examined at the British Museum have come from 

 northern Abyssinia, British East Africa, and Mashonaland. 



Somali Black Rhinoceros 



Diceros bicornis somaliensis 



Native Names: Somali, wiyil; Galla, zuartses. 



Diceros bicornis somaliensis Potocki, 1900, Sport in Somaliland, p. 82. 



Range. — From the desert nyika zone of the northern 

 Guaso Nyiro River and the north bank of the Tana River 

 northward throughout the Lake Rudolf region to the Rift 

 Valley of southern Abyssinia; east as far as western Somali- 

 land and west as far as the east shore of Lake Rudolf. 



Count Potocki has unwittingly become the authority 

 for the name of the small race of the black rhinoceros in- 

 habiting western Somaliland and the desert south of it. 

 In his account of his hunting experiences in Somaliland, as 

 narrated in "Sport in Somaliland," he mentions the rhinoc- 

 eros of Somaliland, giving its scientific name as Rhinoceros 

 bicornis somaliensis, and states that it does not differ from 

 the rhinoceros of central Africa, but that specimens first 

 obtained by Captain Swayne some years previously in 

 Somaliland are said to differ, and he therefore apparently 

 applies the name somaliensis under the assumption that 

 this is the name by which it is already known. Count 

 Teleki was the first sportsman to call attention to this race, 

 which he pointed out in Von Hohnel's narrative of his dis- 

 covery of Lake Rudolf. He refers to it as a smaller race 

 than that inhabiting the highland country of East Africa, 

 and records meeting with it first a short way south of Lake 

 Rudolf and thence northward along the east shore of 

 the lake to its extreme northern end. In distribution it 

 coincides in a general way with that of the reticulated 

 giraffe, Grevy zebra, and desert wart-hog. Lydekker has 

 recently given a short account of this race in the Proceed- 

 ings of the Zoological Society of London for 191 1. 



