NATURE 



521 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1900. 



THE MAMMALS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 

 The Fauna of South Africa; Mamtnals. Vol. i. 

 Primates, Carnivora a?id Ungulata. By W. L. Sclater. 

 Pp. XXX + 324 ; illustrated. (London : Porter, 1900.) 



IN our review of the "Birds of South Africa" (vol. i.), 

 published earlier in the year, reference was made to 

 the scope of the present series of volumes and the pecu- 

 liarities of the South African fauna ; and it will there- 

 fore be unnecessary to recapitulate what has been there 

 written. In the introduction to the volume before us 

 Mr. Sclater remarks that since 1832 no one has attempted 

 to give a complete account of the mammals of South 

 Africa, attention having been concentrated by writers on 

 this subject to the larger forms which constitute the chief 

 attraction to sportsmen and travellers. Accordingly, in 

 the case of the smaller representatives of the class the 

 author has practically a clear field before him, much 

 labour being necessary to collect and collate the numerous 

 papers which have been written of late years on the 

 Rodents and other small mammals of Africa. This por- 

 tion of his subject is, however, reserved for the second 

 volume ; and at present we have only to consider how 

 Mr. Sclater has treated the section dealing with the 

 larger types of mammalian life. 



As he himself admits, his task in this respect has been 

 a comparatively easy one ; the " Book of Antelopes " 

 clearing the way in regard to that very important group 

 of the Ungulata, while the Zebras have been carefully 

 worked out by Mr. Pocock and other naturalists, and the 

 Carnivora have attracted the attention of numerous 

 writers. On all these valuable sources of information 

 Mr. Sclater has drawn largely ; and it is no discredit to 

 him if the work partakes to a very considerable degree 

 of the nature of a compilation, and contains comparatively 

 little that is new and original. Indeed, this is fully 

 acknowledged in the Introduction, where the author 

 takes care to state that in his account of the habits of 

 the different animals he has relied on the observations of 

 others, and endeavoured to compile from published 

 writings and manuscript letters an adequate and readable 

 account of each. 



By these observations we by no means intend to imply 

 that Mr. Sclater's work is in any sense a superfluous or 

 unnecessary one ; the " Book of Antelopes " and other 

 works of that description are expensive and accessible 

 only to the few ; and, as already said, there is no modern 

 and up-to-date work treating of South African mammals 

 as a whole. 



Both in respect to his treatment of the aforesaid life- 

 histories and in his description of the species themselves 

 Mr. Sclater may, indeed, be fairly congratulated on the 

 result of his labours ; the volume before us being suffi- 

 ciently popular and interesting to attract the attention of 

 the sportsman, while at the same time it contains a suffi- 

 cient amount of technical (latail to satisfy the needs of 

 the working naturalist. \\ hether, however, in these days 

 of cheap natural histories and zoological text-books it is 

 necessary that every work on local faunas should contain 

 a hackneyed recapitulation of the characteristics of the 

 NO. 16 [3, VOL. 62] 



orders and other large groups of animals may be a ques- 

 tion which many would, we think, be inclined to answer 

 in the negative. As regards the numerous illustrations 

 in this volume, it is much to be regretted that the majority, 

 which were executed in the Colony, are of a very inferior 

 description, and in no wise worthy to stand alongside 

 those borrowed from the " Book of Antelopes " and other 

 well-known works. Probably there is not time to alter 

 the arrangements made for illustrating the second 

 volume ; but if there be, it is most desirable that the 

 drawings should be made and photographed in this 

 country. 



As regards the local variations presented by species, 

 the author is perhaps a little too conservative ; and 

 although he gives full details in regard to the numerous 

 races of Burchell's zebra, we venture to think that more 

 might have been said, for instance, with regard to the 

 local phases of the Kaffir cat and some of the jackals. 

 Among the Carnivora, it is interesting to find that the 

 author recognises the black-footed cat (Felis nigripes), 

 which has been so unaccountably overlooked by recent 

 writers, as entitled to rank as a species. And, in another 

 group, we think he is decidedly well advised in adopting 

 the Colonial term " Dassie " (an abbreviation of the Boer 

 klip-dass = rock-badger) as the popular name for those 

 animals which used to be scientifically known as Hyrax, 

 until that name was displaced by the earlier Procavia. 



Generally speaking, Mr. Sclater is, indeed, well up to 

 date as regards nomenclature, both popular and scientific. 

 He does not, however, in all cases give credit for recent 

 emendations in nomenclature to those to whom it is due. 

 For instance, the reader would be led to imagine that 

 the author was the first in modern times to replace the 

 ordinary scientific title for the eland by Taurotragns 

 oryx, whereas the change was initiated last year by Mr. 

 Rowland Ward in his "Records of Big Game." And 

 it cannot be urged in the authors defence that the 

 omission is due to the fact of his quoting only references 

 from works bearing directly on South Africa, since he 

 departs from this rule in the case of Cephalophus gtimmi 

 (p. 157), as well as in other instances. A change of 

 name for which the author appears to be really respon- 

 sible occurs in the substitution of Strepsiceros capensis 

 for S. kudu ; but this directly raises the question of the 

 advisability of adopting the alliterative S. strepsiceros, 

 which some would now regard as the proper name of 

 the kudu. 



On the whole, the volume appears to be remarkably 

 free from misprints and slips. On p. 317 the author 

 has, however, given Elephas planifrons as the type of 

 Falconer's subgenus -^Euelephas, and E. hysudricus as 

 that oi Loxodon ; whereas the two specific names should 

 be transposed. But this unfortunate slip is not all, for 

 in making these two species the respective types of the 

 subgenera the author has totally misrepresented Falconer. 

 Mr. Sclater has, of course, taken them as the types be- 

 cause they occur first in Falconer's table. But Euelephas 

 of Falconer is merely the typical subgenus of Elephas 

 {Elephas proper it would now be called), and therefore 

 the type of the one is the type of the other ; this being, 

 of course, the Indian elephant. Again, in the paper to 

 which Mr. Sclater refers. Dr. Falconer, in writing of 

 the Loxodons, says that "the existing type of this group 



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