326 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



Sable and Roan Antelopes 



Egoceros 



Egoceros Desmarest, 1822, Mammalogie, II, p. 425; type Antilope leucophcsa 



Pallas, the bluebuck. 



The well-known name of Hippotragus, which has served 

 so long for this genus, has been recently replaced by the 

 older name of Egoceros, owing to its possessing a single- 

 letter difference over the older genus Egoceros, which was 

 applicable only to the domestic goats and sheep. Changes 

 of this sort which affect well-known names, and which have 

 been brought about owing to a change in the rules governing 

 nomenclature, tend, unfortunately, to destroy rather than 

 establish stability in nomenclature and are reluctantly ac- 

 cepted by the authors. 



This genus is characterized by the long, evenly curved 

 horns which arise vertically above the orbits and sweep 

 backward in a wide semicircle and are heavily ringed for 

 nearly their whole length. The horns are heavier and longer 

 in the male. The face is somewhat striped, but the body is 

 uniform in color on the dorsal surface and the anteorbital 

 glands are absent. The body form resembles that of the 

 hartebeests, the withers being high, and the tail tufted and 

 of medium length. The ears are long and narrow; the snout 

 is somewhat elongate, and the false hoofs are large. Three 

 recent species comprise the genus: the sable, the roan, and the 

 extinct bluebuck. The last-named species was limited to the 

 extreme southeast corner of the Cape Colony, and it was no 

 doubt owing to its limited range that it so early became ex- 

 tinct. The last living specimens disappeared somewhat more 

 than a century ago, so that their extermination can in no way 

 be traced to modern firearms. The sable and roan range 

 from the southern point of Africa northward to the Zambesi 

 River and thence on the East Coast to British East Africa. 

 The latter species continues alone through the central lake re- 

 gion to Abyssinia and the Nile, where it spreads westward to 

 Senegal along the southern edge of the Sahara. The genus is 

 lacking only in the Congo forest region. Five fossil species 

 have been recorded, the oldest from the Miocene of Europe 

 and four later Pliocene species, one from India, another from 



