On the East-African Reedbuck. S03 



XXXVIII.— (9n the " 7V/i," the East-African Reedbuck cur- 

 rently knoicn as Ccrvicapra bohor. By Oldfieli) TiiOMAS. 



Messks. Rowland Ward liavc recently put into my hands 

 three lleedbuck skulls which, collected some twenty or 

 thirty yeais ago, had become scattered info difterent collec- 

 tions, but which, noticing their peculiarity, Messrs. Ward had 

 kept in touch with and have now brought together again in 

 order that I might examine and report uj)i)n thrm. 



They were obtained in some part of tlie U()p!'r Nile, and, 

 according to one account, at Kassala. Their collector was a 

 Herr Essler, by whom a number of other large mammals 

 now in the British ]\Iuseum were procui'ed at the same time. 



Their northern locality has still more recently been con- 

 firmed by Dr. Donaldson Smith, who obtained several 

 specimens of the same form during his recent journey from 

 Lake Rudolf to the Nile, in about 5° N, latitude. 



Now these specimens all agree among themselves, and 

 differ from all the species recognized in the ' Book of Ante- 

 lopes,' by the peculiar graceful curvature of their horns, 

 which, while first sloping backwards and then outwards 

 somewhat as in C. arundinum, are distinctly (though not 

 abruptly) recurved forwards and inwards terminally. As a 

 result their back view is not altogether unlike the more 

 distant figure of C. arundinum in the ' Book of Antelopes,' 

 pi. xliii., though the tips approach each other terminally 

 much more, while their side view is similar both to those of 

 • theEast-Atricananfelopecurrently known, since Dr. Gvinther's 

 paper on the subject *, as C. bohor^ antl also to Ruppell's 

 figure of " Antilope redunca " f, afterwards the type of his 

 C. bohor. 



The side view of the horn-curvature being therefore the 

 same, Dr. Giinther, in the absence of Abyssinian material, 

 not unnaturally assigned the East- African animal, the " Tohi " 

 of Mr. Jackson in ' Big Game Shooting,' to Kiijjpell's 

 species; but it is now quite clear, both by locality and by 

 some details about the tyjjc kindly sent me by Dr. Kobelt, 

 that Messrs. Ward's specimens are the true Bohor, being the 

 first examples oi it that have come to this country. By their 

 aid we see that it is a peculiar northern species, most nearly 

 allied to C. arundinum, \o \\\\n:\\ it approximates in size, but is 

 distinguished by its terminally incurved and recurved horns. 



* r. Z. S. I8i>0, p. 604. 



t N. Wirb. Abyss, pi. vii. fig. 1 (laT)). 



