94 



SAVAGE SUDAN 



(2) NEUMANN'S HARTEBEEST (True Bubalis neumanni}. 

 About 100 miles south of Renk, on White Nile, a "lone bull" 

 of this species was shot by the Hon. Gerald Legge, who showed 

 me the specimen aboard his gyassa, a second being obtained 

 the same season (1914) near Bohr by Lieut. G. P. de B. Monk. 

 In both cases the horns corresponded precisely with those of 

 the hartebeests discovered by my late friend, Arthur Neumann, 

 on Lake Rudolph, but not with those of that local race of 

 hartebeest which, a few years ago, we all mistook for true 

 " Neumann's," and whose range is restricted to the narrow 

 limits between Lakes Elmenteita and Nakuru in British East 



Africa. The latter has now 

 been separated correctly, in 

 my view as Bubalis nakurce, 

 Heller. Between it and the true 

 Neumann's on Lake Rudolph 

 occurs a gap of 300 miles. 



Incidentally (and quite in- 

 appropriately) I here enter pass- 

 ing protest against a theory that 

 ascribes the said Nakuru harte- 

 beest to hybridism. In Nature's 



plan hybridism has no place, though hybrids exist in plenty. 



For an object-lesson in hybrids, read SELOUS, African Nature 



Notes and Reminiscences, pp. 35-36. 



(3) TORA HARTEBEEST (Bubalis tora\ This is the form 

 found in Eastern Sudan on Atbara, Settite, Rahad, Binder, 

 and Blue Nile meeting the range of tiang on the head-waters 

 of the two last-named rivers a sandy-red animal, unicolorous, 

 and with rather wide-spread horns that suggest affinity with 

 its neighbour, Swayne's hartebeest further east (in Somaliland), 

 and with Neumann's on the south. Horn measurements as 

 given in Cotton's Eastern Sudan (p. 271), 17 to 18 inches, with 

 a similar spread between tips. Weights of four bulls shot on 

 Settite River, 313 to 397 Ib. 



regarded as of little or no importance. Secondly, that the value of 

 the alleged differences themselves are trifling, amounting to no more than 

 " individual variation," the range of which variation frequently far exceeds 

 the meticulous trifles upon which systematists revel in multiplying fantastic 

 racial forms. This fact my own small collections suffice to demonstrate. 



"MARABOU OVER." 



