ZOOLOGY 353 



Cameroons to the Seinliki Kiver or Albeitine \il(\ .Alan and beasts have 

 partially broken througli this forest barrier, though numy have been com- 

 pletely kept back by it ; but as most movements seek the line of least 

 resistance, so this lielt of forest stretcliing across two-thirds of the southern 

 prolongation of the Dark Continent (coupled possibly with a once existing 

 Eastern African forest, or with regions of al)solute sterility near to the 

 Indian (Jcean) must have concentrated from time to time within what is 

 now the Uganda Protectorate the movements of living beings whom 

 pressure from the nortli-east was thrusting farther and faither into 

 Africa. Tlie Uganda Protectorate is remarkable as containing illustrative 

 types representing nearly all tlie zoographical divisions into which Africa is 

 divided. Here we find forms peculiarly characteristic of the West African 

 region, of South Africa, of East Africa, Somalihmd. Central Africa, and the 

 Nile Valley. In the forests of its Western Province there are chimpanzees ; 

 the gorilla itself is found within a few days' march of Uganda's western 

 frontier. In the Eastern Province of Uganda there is that clumsy jerboa so 

 peculiarly characteristic of the South African karroo, the Cape jumping hare, 

 as it is incorrectly styled (Pedetes catfer). There are the aard wolf and a 

 baboon which, if not the South African chakma, is almost indistinguishable 

 from it. In the north, and })erha})s west, of the Uganda Protectorate, 

 the miscalled white or square-lipped rhinoceros, formerly thought to be 

 confined in its distribution to the districts south of the Zambezi, has been 

 shown to exist by INIajor Gibbons, and both Speke and Stanley claimed 

 to have shot it in Western Uganda. The buffaloes of Uganda are, in the 

 extreme west, the red, short-horned Congo form ; in the centre, the 

 Abyssinian type, with horns approximating slightly to the Indian buffalo ; 

 and, in the south-west, south, and north-east, the buffalo of South Africa. 

 In its eastern, central, northern, and south-western districts Uganda is 

 extremely rich in those vast herds of game which once characterised South 

 Africa. Xearly every known type of African antelope is represented here. 

 Here, too, are the two principal types of zebra — Grevy's zelira, with its 

 narrow black stripes, large ears, and great size, and Grant's variety of 

 Burchell's zebra, with broad black bands, small white ears, and a IuiIk not 

 much greater than that of tlie true zebra of South Africa.* The wild ass 

 of Nubia penetrates into the north-eastern part of the Protectorate. The 

 giraffes are mainly of the three-horned and five-horned northern species, but 

 it is possible that the Somaliland giraffe (G. reticulaUi) penetrates into the 

 Pudolf region. Lastly, in its Western Province, the Uganda Protectorate 



* The existing striped horses should, 1 think, be divided into three groujis : {a) 

 Grevy's zebra (quite distinct from the others) ; {/>) the now extinct quagga ; (c) all 

 the other zebras — i.e., the four or five varieties of IjuiTliell's. and the true or mountain 

 zebra, which slightly approaches Grevi/i. 



VOL. I. 23 



