BUFFALOES 415 



East African Buffalo 



Syncerus caffer radclifei 



Native Names: Swahili, mbogo or nyaii; Masai, olaro ; Kavirondo (Jaluo), 

 jui. 



Buhalis caffer radcliffei Thomas, 1904, Proc. Zool. Soc, p. 371. 



Range. — From the Northern Guaso Nyiro River drain- 

 age and the northern highlands of Uganda southward 

 through British and German East Africa; east as far as the 

 coast, and westward to the Edward Nyanza and Lake Kivu. 



The buffalo has been known to occur in East Africa 

 from the dawn of its history. During the early explora- 

 tion of the country it occurred in countless thousands from 

 the bush country of the coast to the plateaux of the far 

 interior, and was much better known than it has been since 

 its partial extermination by the rinderpest in 1890. Speke 

 and Grant recorded the buffalo as abundant everywhere 

 throughout the grass country. In 1904 Thomas described 

 the East African buffalo as a distinct race from the South 

 African, applying to it the name radcliffei^ and basing his 

 description upon a specimen collected in Ankole, Uganda, by 

 Colonel Delme-Radcliffe during his boundary survey of the 

 German border. Two years later Matschie published a paper 

 describing several races from East Africa upon trivial differ- 

 ences in horn shape. The differences which Matschie has 

 assigned to his races are of an individual character and of 

 no racial value, and on this account cannot be recognized. 

 At least seven of his racial or specific names, as he uses them, 

 apply to the race here considered as radcliffei. The differ- 

 ences in horn shape in a single herd of buffaloes are really 

 quite wide individually when animals of the same age alone 

 are compared. The age difference is known by all sports- 

 men to be much greater, varying from the short, horizontally 

 directed horns of the young bulls to the great, massive, down- 

 curved horns of the old bulls. In "East African Game 

 Trails" Colonel Roosevelt, having in mind Matschie's paper, 

 mentions the extensive variation in horn shape he observed 

 in a herd from which he shot several specimens at Kamiti 

 Farm, and throws doubt upon such races as Matschie's, 

 based upon slight differences in horn shape. Matschie re- 



