476 SIR V. BROOKE ON AFRICAN BUFFALOES. [May 20, 



In 1686 Grew, in his work on the " Rarities belonging to the 

 Royal Society, and preserved at Gresham College," describes (p. 26) 

 in the following words a specimen at that time contained in the col- 

 lection of the Society : — " The horns of a wild Bull They are 



broad at the roots, but grow very sharp of a sudden, and bended in- 

 wards about the middle, so that the tips are not more than two 

 inches distant. See the animal described by Belon and others." 

 On turning to Belon's 'Travels in Asia, Arabia, and Egypt,' pub- 

 lished in 1555, I find that at pages 119, 120, he figures and de- 

 scribes a small species of Buffalo, which he culls the " Petit Baeuf 

 e?' Afrique." He describes the animal as "about the size of the 

 Stag, having the horns notched like those of the Gazelle and raised 

 upon the frontal bones." Belon states that the specimen examined 

 by him was brought from Asamie (probably Azamor of modern 

 maps) a province in Morocco. 



Pennant in his ' Synopsis' (1771), in plate 8, fig. 3, figures, and at 

 page 9 describes, the specimen which had been described by Grew, 

 as above quoted, nearly a century before, and which was then still 

 preserved in the Royal Society's collection. Both Grew and Pen- 

 nant appear to have considered this specimen certainly identical 

 with that described by Belon ; but although I think this probable, I 

 have discovered nothing in Belon's writings to enable me to trace 

 the specimen described by him into the possession of the Royal 

 Society. In his ' Quadrupeds,' published some years later, Pen- 

 nant gives the same figure (which appeared first in his ' Synopsis '), 

 and describes the species under the name of the " Dwarf Buffalo." 

 In Turton's translation of the 'Systema Naturae' (1806) the same 

 specimen is again mentioned (p. 121) and the specific name pumilus 

 conferred on the species. In 1852 Dr. Gray (Cat. Mamm. Brit. 

 Mus.) again figured this old and remarkable specimen, which had 

 passed with the rest of the collection of the Royal Society, in 1780, 

 from Crane Court into the British Museum ; but in the text (p. 28) 

 Dr. Gray expressed his opinion that the specimen represented the 

 young of Bubalus caffer, and placed former references to it under 

 the synonyms of that species. In the • Proceedings ' of this So- 

 ciety for 1863, at p. 157, Mr. Blyth, in a paper on African Buffaloes, 

 figures once more this specimen, and, convinced of its specific distinc- 

 tion, but unaware of Turton's previous name, proposes for it that of 

 reclinis. Dr. Gray, in his last Catalogue of the Ruminants in the 

 British Museum (1872), recognizes the specific distinction, and adopts 

 Mr. Blyth's name reclinis. It may be well for me to add that a 

 comparison of the drawings given by Dr. Gray and Mr. Blyth with 

 that given by Pennant, and of these with the original specimen in 

 the British Museum (which is composed of the frontal bones and 

 horns), renders the identity of the specimen, of whose history I have 

 here given an abstract, clear and certain. It was, then, with no 

 small satisfaction that I perceived in my own specimen (obtained, 

 as before stated, from Mr. Gerrard) an example of the mysterious 

 species which had been, as I then believed, for three centuries 

 represented solely by the Royal Society's old specimen ; and ac- 



