WILDEBEEST AND HARTEBEEST 391 



Key to Races of cokei 



Horns broadly bracket-shaped and turned sharply outward at right 

 angles 

 Dorsal coloration darker or more tawny-rufous; body size and 

 horns smaller cokei 



Dorsal coloration lighter or more bufFy; body size and horns 

 larger kongoni 



Horns without a sharp right-angle turn outward, bowed out regularly 

 Horns wide-spread but not angulated or bracket-shaped; col- 

 oration darker and more tawny neumanni 



Horns narrower or more V-shaped in direction; coloration lighter 

 and more bufFy nakurce 



Coast Hartebeest 



Bubalis cokei cokei 



Native Names: Swahili, kongoni; Taita, nose. 



Alcelaphus cokei Giinther, 1884, Ann. ^ Mag. Nat. Hist., XIV, p. 426; fig. of 

 horns. 



Range. — Coast district of British East Africa from the 

 Tana River southward to Kilimanjaro and central German 

 East Africa, west as far as the eastern edge of the highland 

 plateau; absent from the moist coast belt. 



The typical race was described by Doctor Giinther in 

 1884 from a head shot by Colonel Coke in Usagara, German 

 East Africa, in 1880. This was the first complete specimen 

 of this very abundant species to reach Europe. Von der 

 Decken had previously, in 1862, collected the horns near 

 Kilimanjaro. Speke and Grant must have met with this 

 hartebeest, but their accounts are so vague that they may 

 refer to the Lichtenstein hartebeest rather than this species. 



The typical Coke hartebeest is a smaller and more red- 

 dish animal than the highland race named kongoni. It is 

 indistinguishable in horn shape from the latter, but the 

 skull is decidedly smaller, averaging an inch less in length. 

 The dorsal color is usually darker or more reddish, espe- 

 cially the crown and the snout, which are cinnamon-rufous 



