18/3.] SIR V. BROOKE ON AFRICAN BUFFALOES. 477 



cordingly, thinking the matter to be of considerable interest, I com- 

 menced a paper in which I intended to lay before the Society the 

 facts as they then appeared to me. Fortunately, however, before 

 sending in my communication, I determined to take advantage of 

 any new light which might possibly be thrown upon the subject 

 during a visit to some ot the principal continental museums. The 

 observations consequent upon this visit may be conveniently grouped 

 under two heads. 



First. As to the identity of the Bos pumilus of Turton with the 

 Bubalus brachyceros of Gray. 



Second. Upon the possible identity of the smaller species of 

 Buffalo of Eastern Africa mentioned by Heuglin and others with 

 Bubalus pumilus. 



First, as regards the identity of Bos pumilus of Turton with the 

 Bubalus brachyceros of Gray. 



In the magnificent Museum at Leiden are preserved the perfect 

 skulls and horns of two Buffaloes, originally brought from the coast 

 of Guinea by Pel. These specimens are beautifully figured in the 

 ' Bijdragen tot de Dierkunde ' (i. p. 33), and in the article accom- 

 panying the plates, as also in the Leiden Museum, are referred to the 

 Bubalus brachyceros of Gray. It was therefore with very consider- 

 able astonishment that I found the Dutch specimens, in their much 

 larger, more flattened, and more corrugated horns, to differ in a 

 striking manner from the types of Dr. Gray's Bubalus brachyceros ; 

 whilst, on the other hand, in these characters they presented a strong 

 resemblance to the old specimen, the history of which I have above 

 given, and to the specimen in my own collection. 



At first this discovery puzzled me exceedingly ; but subsequent 

 investigation has led me to what I believe to be true solution of the 

 difficulty, viz. that notwithstanding the, at first sight, remarkable 

 contrast between Pel's specimens and those upon which Dr. Gray 

 founded the species Bubalus brachyceros, they in reality belong but 

 to one species, the former representing the male, the latter the fe- 

 male. The name Bubalus brachyceros was first published by Dr. 

 Gray in the 'Magazine of Natural History' for 1837 (p. 587), in a 

 notice of two buffalo-heads obtained by Captain Clapperton in 

 Central Africa (figure 3), and presented to the British Museum. 

 In 1839 (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. p. 284) Dr. Gray amplified his 

 former notice of the species by some observations founded on a 

 living female Buffalo which Mr. Cross of the Surrey Zoological 

 Gardens had just received from Sierra Leone. In this paper Dr. 

 Gray dwells upon the close points of resemblance between the Sierra 

 Leone specimen and those brought from Central Africa by Captain 

 Clapperton : it may therefore be well to remark in passing that the 

 country from which Pel's specimens were obtained lies intermediate 

 to the countries which afforded the specimens upon which Dr. 

 Gray's remarks were founded. Taken in connexion with this re- 

 mark I find in the British Museum three specimens which, so far 

 as my judgment serves me, appear to decide the matter. These 

 specimens were obtained by Dr. Baikie during the Niger expedi- 



