74 THE AMIJilCAS MCSKIM JOCJLXAL 



Dv. Sclatcr cxliihilccl a watcr-coloi' drawinu of tlic animal made by Sir 

 Harry -lolmstoii From a IVcsli skin secured llii'duuli the IJel^ian authorities 

 oF Fort Mheiii. From this (h-uwiiiji; it heeamc e\idciit that tiic now animal 

 was not a zel)ra, nor evcMi a member oF the family Kquidw, but a species 

 allied to the yiraU'e. The drawing' was published as Plate I oF \ oluine II 

 oF the J'rocccduujfi oF the Zoological Society lor 1901. This skin and also 

 two skulls, obtained by native soldiers of the Congo Free State near Fort 

 jNlbeni, were forwarded by Sir Harry to the 15i-itish IMuseum, wliere they 

 arrived June 17, 1901, and served as the basis of a paper j)resented by 

 Professor E. I{ay Lankester the following day at a meeting of the Zoological 

 Society. From these specimens he was able to give the princij)al characters 

 of this strange animal and discuss its relationships. He found it to repre- 

 sent a new genus, allied to the giralVe and also to certain extinct forms from 

 tlie Miocene of soiithei'u l">uroj)e and India. He ga\'e to the new genus the 

 name Olcapia. 



This skin was mounted by Rowland Ward For the British Museum, where 

 it was ])laeed on exhibition in August, 1001 — the first example oF the " mys- 

 terious okapi" installed for public exhibition. ( Olored drawings of the 

 mounted specimen were immediately given wide publicity in \arious popu- 

 lar as w ell as scientific j)ublications. The disc()\'ery of an animal so strange 

 and striking naturally excited great interest, and the okapi was soon famous 

 throughout the world. 



Since 1001 numerous sjiecimens of this animal have been taken in the 

 Congo region, nearly all of them through the agency of the Belgian (Govern- 

 ment. They include not only skins and skulls of adults of both sexes and 

 of various ages, but also a. numljcrof comi)lete skeletons, rei)resenting alto- 

 gether some thirty or more indi\iduals. While nuich of this material has 

 been retained for the museums of lielgiiun, many specimens have been 

 presented, by direction of the late King Leopold II. to other European 

 museums. Permission has also been generously granted to several j)rivate 

 expeditions of other nationalities to enter the Congo Free State in pursuit 

 of the okapi, but apparently they ha\c met with little sucee.ss, except in 

 the case of the Alexander (rossling expedition, which sectwed skins, skidls 

 and skeletons for the British Museum, and, as noted below, of the Lang- 

 Chapin Congo Expedition of the .\merieaii Museum. 



The material thus acciuired by European museiuns, notably that in the 

 Museum at Ter\'u<>r(Mi, has Fiu'iiished the basis for several important mono- 

 graphs of the species, and for a large muiiber of minor ])apers, resulting in an 

 okapi literattu'e mimbering more than half a himdred titles, so that the 

 external and osteological characters and the afhnities of few .species are 

 now better known tlian are those of the okapi. 



