THE COUNTRY AND ITS HISTORY 5 



animals. Two of these were striking new species and were 

 named after the explorers: the sitatunga, Limnotragus 

 spekei, and the great-horned gazelle, Gazella granti. Sev- 

 eral other new species of big game were in the collection, 

 notably the white-bearded wildebeest and Baker's roan 

 antelope, but they were named later from specimens secured 

 by more recent explorers. 



While Speke and Grant were exploring Uganda, Heuglin, 

 a German naturalist, was penetrating the unknown region 

 of the Bahr el Ghazal, a western affluent of the White Nile. 

 Theodore von Heuglin was more naturalist than explorer, 

 his work being undertaken without any political or geo- 

 graphical incentive. He made extensive collections of the 

 mammals, birds, and plants of the upper Nile districts dur- 

 ing 1863-4. To this exploration is due the discovery of 

 the giant eland, the largest of all known antelopes. The 

 giant eland is of rare and local occurrence, and since its 

 discovery in 1864 remained quite unknown until within 

 the last five years, when it was rediscovered in the region 

 where Heuglin first obtained it. He also discovered and 

 named the lelwel hartebeest, the Nile bushbuck, and the 

 remarkable white-withered lechwi, since called Mrs. Gray's 

 waterbuck. This latter species he failed to fix in literature 

 by a description, but simply gave to it a name, Adenota 

 megaceros. A fellow countryman, Fitzinger, in recording 

 the collection on its arrival at Vienna, mentioned the name 

 proposed by Heuglin and added a short description which 

 gives the name standing and fixes it for its discoverer. 

 Later Gray, of the British Museum, described it as Kohus 

 maria, from a specimen obtained subsequently by an Eng- 

 lish consul. 



