18 THE ANTELOPES IN 



an extremely difficult although highly attractive task, which 

 they fulfilled so completely and so energetically. »Errare 

 humanum" there are inaccuracies in the Book; »tot capita tot 

 mentes" every author has his own opinions — the Scomber- 

 scomber-theory f. i. ! However as a whole I think this is 

 the best and most complete Monograph of large Mammals 

 ever published. 



As the Leyden Museum is extremely rich in Antelopes 

 from Africa — the fatherland per excellence of Antelopes 

 — I from time to time compared our collection with the 

 descriptions in the Antelope-work and when I publish 

 hereafter some of my observations, I do this in order to the 

 aid of working naturalists and at the same time to fix 

 the attention of the scientific world upon the unsurpassed 

 collection of Antelopes stored up in the Leyden Museum. 



It contains a much larger number of extinct Antelopes 

 than any other Museum and generally the specimens are 

 in a splendid condition of conservation, meanwhile the 

 mounted specimens are with a few exceptions really highly 

 artistically traded. The great value of our collection bases 

 in the facts that nearly all Antelopes have been collected 

 in the field and that we have in addition an incomparably 

 large series of skeletons and skulls of the same animals. 



Buhalis major (Blyth). 



Buhalis buselaphus and B. major cannot be confounded 

 with the other species of the genus Bubalis as they are 

 distinctly characterized by the horns diverging when viewed 

 in front in the form of the letter U. Bubalis major 

 is a much larger animal than buselaphus, much larger in 

 all its dimensions, it has moreover black markings in front 

 of all four feet above the hoofs, meanwhile buselaphus shows 

 no trace of such dark markings. The type-specimen »a 

 skin without horns or hoofs", perhaps the very same skin 

 » without horns or hoofs" formerly mentioned by Gray in 

 P. Z. S. L. 1850, p. 139, var. I, and at that time in the 

 British Museum, has vanished; the authors of the Book 



Notes from the Leyden IMuseuiia, Vol. XXIII. 



