2IO 



NATURE 



[December 15, 1910 



difficult to agree with the propriety of such a decision, 

 and it is to be hoped that before long the text which 

 should accompany these illustrations will also be 

 printed and published, especially as in the interval of 

 time which must elapse, further accurate information 

 regarding this interesting beast may have come to 

 hand. (The present writer has just been advised by Dr. 

 Bumpus, of the Natural History Museum at New 

 York, that a collector sent out by that museum has 

 succeeded in capturing alive a male, female, and calf 

 of the okapi, and these living forms of the animal are 

 now being conveyed across the Congo basin for ship- 

 ment to New York.) I\I. Fraipont's work, moreover, 

 complete as it was for the date of its publication in 

 1908, is not nearly so accessible to ordinary students 

 of zoology as the British Museum publications. 



The history of the discovery of this Giraffid form at 

 the very opening of the twentieth century has already 

 been related so frequently that it does not need to be 

 repeated. But the specimens received during the first 

 few vears from the present writer and others, left 



and above the eyes, swellings to which attention was 

 immediately directed by the whorls of hair in the skin 

 of my large specimen, which suggested that the okapi 

 could develop giraffe-like "horns" on those places. 

 The complete skin and skull obtained for me bv 

 Lieuts. Meura and Eriksson, and now in the British 

 Museum, were shown conclusively to belong to an 

 example that was sub-adult, namely, not grown to its 

 fullest size of development. The sex was very doubt- 

 ful. The natives who brought in the skin seem to 

 have spoken of it as the skin of a male, but it was 

 generally adjudged to be a female. 



As soon as attempts were made to transmit okapi 

 specimens to Europe, the zoological authorities in 

 Brussels, London, and Paris were not long in having 

 in their hands skulls of undoubted male okapis 

 possessing ossicones three inches long or more*, some 

 of which bore at the tip a small piece of naked 

 bone equivalent to the beginning of an antler. Other 

 skulls, again, supposed to be female, were quite horn- 

 less. In some cases, minute ossicones were dis- 



Right Hind-leq 

 Outside view. 



Right Hind-leg 

 Front view. 



Outside view. 



Right Fore-leg 

 Front view 



Left Fore- leg 

 Back view. 



KiG. I.— Specimen of Okapi in the British Museum (Natural History) presented by Sir Harry Johnston. From "A Monograph of the Okapi." 



those zoologists who studied them in some perplexity, 

 for they seemed to indicate, when closely compared 

 and examined, the existence of two types, or even 

 species, of okapi. There was considerable difference, 

 for example, in the arrangement of the stripes on the 

 hindquarters between the first strips of skin sent home 

 by myself in 1900 and the complete skin obtained by 

 me with the help of Lieuts. Meura and Eriksson in 

 190 1, and still more in the specimens secured later by 

 the Belgian officers in the Congo basin and a number 

 of British explorers or natural history collectors. 



As already stated by M. Fraipont, this variability 

 of the alternations of black and white on the hind- 

 .quarters and fore limbs must apparently be accepted 

 as a characteristic feature of the okapi, and can 

 scarcely be reg-arded as of specific value. But then 

 arises the problem of the existence and non-existence 

 of ossicones. Both the skulls sent home by me in 

 190 1 were found to be hornless, though one presented 

 slight swellings of the bones at the base of the nose 



NO. 2146, VOL. 85] 



covered under the skin. The general conclusions to 

 which zoologists were brought by the imperfect mate- 

 rial at their command were : that there were either 

 two species of okapi, one horned and one without 

 horns; or that the comparatively speaking hornless 

 female okapi was larger than the male : for the 

 horned skulls of all the known male okapis are found 

 to be smaller than those of the specimens of hornless 

 females. 



Then, again, the skulls seemed to be divisible into 

 two series, broad and narrow. The question of two 

 distinct races, subspecies, or species, of okapi (the 

 first known of which was styled Okapia johnstoni) 

 can only be decided finally by extended research. 

 M. Jules Fraipont came to the general conclusion in 

 1908 that there was but one species known to us 

 which he re-named as above, but opined that there 

 might be distinct local races, varieties or even sub- 

 species, within a geographical range, which, although 

 described in the monograph under review as of limited 



