Dr. W. O. Ridewood on Hornless Oknpies. 387 



WA\.~IIornhss Okapies. By W. G. lllDEWOOD. 



In tlic Au^^ist number of the ' Aimals and Magazine of 

 Natural IIi-;tory,' pp. 224-22G, Mr. K. Lydckker endeavours 

 to show that hornless spt'ciuKMid of the Okaj)! are larger than 

 those with horns. Without vetituring to express an opinion 

 one way or the other upon the question, I would f)oiiit out 

 that tiie validity of the conclusions arrived at is weakened 

 by two incorrect statements which have a material bearing 

 upon the ary:unient. 



On p. 225 tile skull of the stuffed Okapi presented to the 

 ]5ritish Museum by ISIijor Powdl-Cotton is stated to be 

 339 mm. in length. It is not mentioned how this measure- 

 ment is taken, whether to the front of tiie nasals or to the 

 front of the premaxillie, or otherwise. But at the foot of 

 the page the lengths of two other skulls are given, namely, 

 375 mm. as the length of a skull presented to the British 

 Museum by Sir Harry Johnston, and 377 mm. as the length 

 of a horned skull in tlie Tervueren Museum. These measure- 

 ments are quoted from Sir E. Ray Lankester's paper (Trans. 

 Zool. Soc. xvi. 6, iy02, p. 305), where the length is stated 

 to have been taken to the front of the nasal bones. One 

 concludes, therefore, that, since a comparison is being insti- 

 tuted between these three skulls, the length of the skull of 

 Major Powell-Cotton's specimen is measured to the front of 

 the nasals. The length as measured in this manner is 

 3'JO mm., not 339 mm. The skull is thus longer than the 

 skull of Sir Harry Johnston's specimen ; in other words, the 

 horned skull is longer than the hornless one. 



On p. 22t) Mr. Lydekker writes concerning the Tervueren 

 skull above mentioned : — " I am informed by tlie Director 

 of the Tervueren Museum that the mounted skin of the 

 specimen to which the skull pertained is 145*5 cm. in height." 

 The skull in questioJi is that of the skeleton numbered 48J 

 in the late Monsieur J. Fraipont's monograph (' Annales du 

 Mu«(5e du Congo/ Zool. ser. 2, vol. i., Okapia, 1907). Ac- 

 cording to the list of specimens on page 14 of that work, and 

 according to tiie earlier statements by Dr. C. I. Forsyth 

 Major in the * Proceedings of tlie Zoological Society,' 1902, 

 ii. pp. 73 & 77, and ' La Belgique ('oloniale,' Ann. viii. 45, 

 Nov. yth, 1902, p. 533, the skin corresponding with tliat 

 skeleton was not sent to Europe ; the skin which arrived at 

 the same time as tiie skelett)n (namely, skin no. 479, now in 

 the StockhuUn Museum) was from another and a younger 



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