280 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



The Cheetah is sparingly distributed throughout northern and 

 eastern Uganda. Not long ago it had a much more extensive distri- 

 bution, occurring throughout the savanna regions. Its disappearance 

 from many localities is due to the extension of settlement and culti- 

 vation. The Cheetah is of sentimental importance and also of 

 considerable economic value, being sought after for hunting ante- 

 lopes in India. Specimens trained by their parents in the field have 

 a local value of 20 to 30. Only one specimen is allowed on a 

 Full Game Licence. (Game Warden, Uganda, in litt., December, 

 1936.) 



De Beaux (1927, p. 4) records the species from Italian Somaliland, 

 Ethiopia, and Eritrea. In the southern plain of Eritrea, especially 

 between Barca and Gash, the animal is rather frequent (Zamma- 

 rano, 1930, p. 61). 



In British Somaliland "the cheetah is commonest in the thick 

 bush country on the edge of the Haud, although it is to be found 

 both on Guban and Ogo-Guban" (Drake-Brockman, 1910, p. 22). 



Sudan Cheetah 



ACINONYX JUBATUS SOEMMERINGII (Fltzinger) 



Cynailurus Soemmeringii "Riippell" Fitzinger, Sitz.-ber. math.-nat. Cl. Akad. 

 Wiss. [Wien], vol. 17, Heft 2, p. 245, 1855. (Based upon a living specimen 

 from the Kababish Steppes in the south of the Bayuda Desert, Kordofan.) 



Roosevelt and Heller (1914, p. 249) give the range as "lowlands 

 of the Nile Valley, from the Albert Nyanza northward to Kordofan 

 and westward to Lake Chad and northern Nigeria." No information 

 is at hand as to the exact northern or western limits of this sub- 

 species, where it should presumably intergrade with A. j. hecki. 

 Its range lies in the eastern portions of the Sudanese Arid District 

 and the Sudanese Savanna District of Chapin (1932, p. 90) and of 

 Bowen (1933, pp. 256, 258). 



The ground color above is ochraceous or pinkish buff; spots not 

 exceeding half an inch in diameter and widely separated ; hind feet 

 unspotted. However, according to Malbrant (1936, p. 137 and pi. 1, 

 upper fig.), the hind legs are nearly always spotted in Cheetahs of 

 the Chad region. 



Roosevelt and Heller (1914, p. 250) record specimens from El 

 Dueim on the White Nile and from Lake Chad. "It is a rare animal 

 in the Nile district and is seldom secured by sportsmen. . . . Heller 

 saw a pair near Gondokoro." 



"Cheetah, although by no means common in the Sudan, are widely 

 distributed throughout the country. They are even reported to 

 exist as far north as Jebel Tegaru in the north-west corner of the 

 Province of Kordofan." (Brocklehurst, 1931, p. 32.) 



