ELAND 



307 



From the country between British East Africa and the Bahr-el- 

 Ghazal province of the Sudan no specimens of eland are available ; but 

 it seems quite probable that in this district a race may exist in some 

 degree connecting T. o. 

 pattersonianus with the 

 Sudan race of the second 

 species of the genus. 



The East African race 

 was first described by me 

 in the Field for June 1 906 

 (vol. cviii. p. 579), on the 

 evidence of a head from 

 the Laikipia plateau pre- 

 sented by Lieut. - Col. 

 J. H. Patterson to the 

 British Museum. A fuller 

 description, with plate, 

 appeared in Xovitates 

 Zoologicce, vol. xiv. p. 324, 

 1907. 



It will be clear from 

 the above that there is a 

 complete gradation in the 

 matter of colouring from 

 the Cape to the East 

 African eland a grada- 

 tion which ought to be 

 met with in all cases 

 where we have to deal 

 with races or subspecies, 

 although it has often 



been eliminated by differentiation. If something approaching a similar 

 gradation is eventually found to connect the East African with 

 the Sudan race of the giant eland, it may be advisable to regard 

 T. derbianus merely as a race of the southern species, with the 

 designation of T. oryx derbianus. 



Whether or no such a gradation, or partial gradation, really exist, 

 it is apparent that eland (which were probably once a northern type, 

 since their fossilised remains occur in the Pliocene or Upper Tertiary 

 strata of southern Europe and India) show a modification from a broad- 

 cared, chestnut-coloured, forest-dwelling animal ( T. derbianns], profusely 



FIG. 64. Head of East African Eland shot by Lieut. -Col. 

 Patterson on the Laikipia Plateau. 



