WILDEBEEST AND HARTEBEEST 349 



Horns curved backward and upward; tail tuft black; lower 

 premolar teeth three Damaliscus 



Horns curved outward and then parallel, forming a U, and greatly 

 exceeding the head in length; tail tuft white; lower 

 premolar teeth two Beatragus 



Skull elongate, the horns united at the base to form a pedicle which is pro- 

 duced backward beyond the restoftheskuU Bubalis 



Damaliscus 



Damaliscus 



Damaliscus Sclater and Thomas, 1894, Book of Antelopes; type D. pygar- 

 gus, the bontebok of South Africa. 



The genus Damaliscus is an assemblage of four very dis- 

 tinct species of hartebeest-like antelopes, comprising the 

 bontebok, blesbok, sassaby, and topis. There is, unfortu- 

 nately, no general term in use among sportsmen for these 

 four species, each of which bears a distinct name, and the 

 only way of supplying this deficiency appears to be the 

 adoption of the generic name as a common English term 

 for the group. The damaliscus have the high withers of 

 the hartebeest, but the head is less elongated and the horns 

 are not united in a pedicle at the base but rise independ- 

 ently above the orbits as in the sable and roan antelope. 

 The horns are heavily ringed and curve evenly backward 

 as in the roan with the exception of the tips which are de- 

 flected slightly upward. The horns are much shorter than 

 those of the roan and are never curved in a semicircle, their 

 general direction being upward or backward in line with the 

 profile of the head. The close relationship of the damaliscus 

 antelopes to the sables and roans is obvious on the compari- 

 son of skulls in the structures of which there is close agreement 

 in the shape of the bones, the absenceof sinuses, and the slight 

 development of the anteorbital fossa. The cheek-teeth of the 

 damaliscus, however, are much narrower and less folded than 

 those of the egocerine antelopes. The genus is most highly 

 developed in South Africa, in which region three distinct spe- 

 cies occur. North of the Zambesi watershed we find only one 

 species, D. korrigum, occupying a wide range of territory from 

 the East to the West Coast as far northward as the southern 

 border of the Sahara Desert and the Abyssinian highlands. 

 A single fossil species is known from the Pleistocene of India. 



