M. DuChaillu^s 'Adventures in Equatorial Africa.^ 469 



could be tamed." The specimen which I described, on the contraiy, 

 lived for some years in the Surrey Zoological Gardens, and then went 

 to the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, where it died ; its skin is preserved 

 in the museum of that institution. It was as tame and gentle as our 

 common cattle. It is well known at Sierra Leone as the Bush Cow, 

 and appears to be generally distributed over intertropical Africa. 



At p. 306 he observes, " I saw several specimens of a very beau- 

 tiful Antelope, hitherto unknoivn, which may be considered by far 

 the handsomest Antelope yet discovered in Africa. This animal, of 

 which I am enabled to give an excellent representation drawn from 

 a well-preserved specimen in my collection, is rare and very shj% 

 swift of foot, and exceedingly graceful in its motions, though more 

 heavily built than most of the Antelope kind." On the opposite 

 page it is figured as " the Bongo Antelope, Tragelaphiis albovirffatns." 



This animal, so far from being new, was noticed by Afzelius in the 

 last century, and is the Antilope euryceros of Ogilby, described in 

 I83G from a head sent by Lieut. Allen from the Bight of Biafra, 

 and the Tragelitphus euryceros of my ' Catalogue of the Hoofed Ani- 

 mals in the Museum Collection,' p. 137. The skin in M. Du Chaillu's 

 collection is certainly a very beautiful one, and it may be considered 

 as the most interesting specimen in his collection ; but the figure is 

 so indifferent, and the description of the animal so incomplete, that 

 it would be impossible to determine its real nature without having an 

 opportunity of examining the skin. Indeed, the figures of the horns 

 are so inaccurate (neither showing the frontal ridge nor the spiral 

 twist), that they would lead one to refer the animal to a genus (or, 

 rather, subfamily of genera) very different from that to which it really 

 belongs ; and the plate in the work appears to be a slightly altered 

 copy of the figure of Tragelaplnis Anyasii from Port Natal, published 

 in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society' in 1848. 



I do not find anything in the work to confirm the opinion ex- 

 pressed in the preface — " Thus I feel almost certain that the Elephant 

 of this region is a variety distinct in several particulars from his 

 South-iVfrican brother." It is of little use making such observations 

 unless they are backed by some reasons, or are supported by some 

 specimens either of the animal or of some of the characteristic 

 portions of the skeleton, as, for example, the skull or the teeth ; but 

 nothing of the kind appears to have been collected, or, at least, none 

 are shown. At the same time he gives an account of the habits of 

 the animal, and the mode of kiUing it by forming a "tangle" for it 

 of "the vines they (the natives) tear down, and with them inge- 

 niously, but with much labour, construct a kind of high fence or 

 obstruction not sufficient to hold the elephant, but quite strong 

 enough to check him in his flight, and entangle him in the meshes 

 till the hunters kill him" (p. 82), which they do thus : — "At the 

 first rush of the elephant, the natives crowd round ; and while he is 

 struggling in their toils, they are plying him with spears, often from 

 trees, till the poor wounded beast looks like a huge porcupine : this 

 spearing does not cease till they have killed their prey" (p. 83). 

 From our knowledge of how long it took to kill ' Chunie ' at Exeter 



