AFRICAN B UFFA LO 69 



and form an enormous shield-like mass. In striking contrast to this 

 is the small red buffalo, or " bush-cow " (B. c. nanus\ in which the 

 general colour is tawny orange-red, while the small horns are widely 

 sundered at their bases and show a more or less marked upward 

 tendency. The difference between these extreme forms is very great, 

 but gradations exist which tend to connect the one with the other. 

 For instance, in the Field newspaper of January 5, 1907, I made some 

 remarks on a tawny-coloured buffalo killed by Major Powell-Cotton in 

 the Semliki district, for which the name B. c. cottoni was suggested. 

 Specimens which subsequently came to my notice indicated that black 

 individuals occurred in the same herd, and from the condition of the 

 teeth in the skull of one of the latter I came to the conclusion that 

 the Semliki buffalo turns black when fully adult (see Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 1906, p. 996). A letter from Mr. A. Yale Massey, of the Tanganyika 

 Concessions Limited, dated Ruwe, on the Lualaba river, in the 

 southern angle of the Congo Free State, to the west of Katanga, 

 affords evidence to the same effect. This gentleman states that he 

 recently shot a black buffalo near Lake Kabele, a few miles west 

 of the Lualaba, about 9 south latitude. He adds that red buffalo 

 (one of which was wounded by a fellow-sportsman) occur in the same 

 herd as the black, the former being designated by the natives kendi, 

 and the latter mbea. So far as could be seen, the two types differ only 

 in the matter of colour. It, therefore, seems practically certain that 

 they belong to one and the same race ; and the presumption is that 

 the dark red individuals are immature, and the black ones fully adult. 

 If this be confirmed it will indicate that the red buffalo, or " bush- 

 cow," of West Africa is the primitive representative of Bos caffer, 

 and the large black Cape buffalo the specialised form of the species, 

 while the South Congo races are the intermediate type. The colour- 

 development of the species, on this view, will be of the same type as 

 that of the bantin, or Javan wild ox, only in this instance we have a 

 fuller illustration of the mode of evolution, the West African race 

 retaining the original red throughout life in both sexes, while the Cape 

 animals develop a sable coat in both sexes soon after the calf stage. 

 It would be interesting to know if the cows of the South Congo buffalo 

 are red at all ages. 



The races of the African buffalo have been worked out in a paper 

 by Dr. Paul Matschie, of the Berlin Museum, published in the 

 Sitzungs-Berichte der GesellscJiaft Naturforschcnder Freundc for 1 906, of 

 which the following is a summary. 



According to Dr. Matschic's views, almost all distinguishable local 



