AND STREPSICEROS IMBERBIS, 213 



and, so far as we know at present, S. imberhis is only 

 met with for certain in Somali-land." 



As I hope to demonstrate , the form , position and length 

 of the horns just are striking proofs that Smith's Damalis 

 capensis was a true Strepsiceros kudu. Although we find 

 some figures and measurements of horns by Gray, Blyth, 

 Smith, Sclater and others, nobody hitherto has paid atten- 

 tion to the great variation in position of those parts, nor to 

 their form if very adult; therefore nearly never the given 

 figures agree with their measurements or inversely. And 

 as the proportion between the distance of the points of 

 the horns and their length changes with the age of the 

 individual and moreover is not constant in the individuals 

 of the same age , so it is evident that measurements without 

 figure or without nearer description of the form of the 

 horn have no value at all. But if figures of a pair of horns 

 are given, it therefore is a desideratum that they should 

 agree with the measurements exhibited in the text. In this 

 point, however, our kudu has been very unfortunate: so 

 Smith said that of his D. capensis the length of the horns 

 was 3 feet and the distance between the horns at points 

 2 feet 7 inches; the proportion being thus 1 to 0.86, 

 meanwhile the proportion in the figure (nearly front view 

 of the horns) is about 1 to 0.6! So in Sclater's figure, 

 P. Z. S. L. 1884, p. 47, fig. 2 {not fig. 1 to bottom of 

 that page), of the horns of Sir. kudu the proportion is 1 

 to 0.7 , meanwhile the proportion between the measure- 

 ments on p. 46 is 1 to 1.06! In both cases the reader 

 is in dubio. 



There are two fine drawings of head with horns of 

 Str. kudu on plate II of Fr. Courteney Selous' »A hunter's 

 wanderings in Africa, 1890". He merely records the length 

 of the horns and it therefore is impossible to know if they 

 have been represented in a natural and true position. 



There are in our Museum a large series of fine Koodoo- 

 horns, some of which have been drawn on plate 9 after 

 photographs. This series will clearly demonstrate the enor- 



JSotes irom the L^eyden IMuseum, Vol. XJI. 



