ORDER ARTIODACTYLA: EVEN-TOED UNGULATES 555 



W. L. Sclater's (1900) excellent description follows: "General 

 appearance bulky and oxlike, with no marked ridge or hump at the 

 shoulders ; body very thinly covered with black hairs, rather thicker 

 on the face, neck, and along the middle of the back, the skin, which 

 is a dark grey black, showing through almost everywhere; head 

 massive, facial line somewhat convex, rhinarium very large, extend- 

 ing well above, but not much below the nostrils, which are separated 

 by a considerable space; skin of the throat somewhat loose and 

 flabby, forming an incipient dewlap; ears drooping, of moderate 

 size, rather broad, nearly naked within, hairy behind, generally 

 much torn and slit; limbs massive, with broad and rounded hoofs 

 and with pointed and well developed false hoofs; tail reaching the 

 hocks, thinly clothed with short hairs ending in a considerable 

 brush. Female smaller. . . . Young, reddish. . . . Very old ani- 

 mals quite hairless." The horns arise nearly together at the vertex 

 of the skull, where they are flattened and ridged; they curve out- 

 ward and down, then up and in, and slightly forward. Rowland 

 Ward's Records of Big Game gives 56^ inches as the record spread, 

 and 41 inches or slightly over for the length on the front curve. 

 Anything over 44 inches in width across the beams is large. In a 

 mounted male buffalo the head and body were 9 feet 1 inch ; tail, 28 

 inches; height at shoulder, 59 inches. 



In localities where there is plenty of water and grazing, with thick 

 bush or swamp near at hand for cover, buffaloes were "formerly 

 found throughout the southern and eastern parts" of South Africa. 

 Kolben states that in his time, about 1731, "they were common close 

 to Cape Town," and Paterson at the end of that century met with 

 them at Caledon. By 1900, W. L. Sclater wrote that "there are still 

 a considerable number in the Addo and Kowie bush, in the districts 

 of Uitenhage, Alexandria, Bathurst, and Albany; also in Zululand, 

 Damaraland, Rhodesia and the Beira Province. They appear to be 

 exterminated in Bechuanaland and in the Transvaal, though a few- 

 years ago there were a good many along the Sabi River in the east- 

 ern Transvaal." There is a mounted skeleton in the South African 

 Museum from the Addo Bush, and skulls and horns from Knysna, 

 where it is now extinct. In Portuguese East Africa, Tanganyika, 

 Kenya Colony and into the Sudan, buffaloes are still locally common. 

 In some areas, as in Northern Rhodesia, buffaloes are even "increas- 

 ing to an alarming extent and the country is overrun with large herds 

 of these animals" (David Ross, in litt. 1936). Again, as in some 

 parts of Tanganyika, the numbers have increased to the extent that 

 "even its removal from the schedule would probably not reduce its 

 numbers, provided no export were permitted of its skins" (Jour. 

 Soc. Pres. Fauna Empire, pt. 2, p. 46, 1932). In 1933, there were 

 said to be about 20 buffaloes in the Addo Reserve, South Africa. In 



