478 



SIR V. BROOKE ON AFRICAN BUFFALOES. 



[May 20, 



tion. They represent an old male and two females. The former 

 was presented to the Museum by Dr. Baikie ; the two latter were 

 purchased from his collection. Unfortunately there is no exact 

 locality attached to any of these specimens ; but from the very slight 



Fig. 3. 



Head of Bubalus, ? , brought by Capt. Clapperton from Central Africa, 

 of the types of B. brachyccros (Gray). 



One 



interest which Dr. Baikie appears to have taken in natural history, 

 there can be little doubt that they were obtained somewhere along 

 the course of the Niger, and that they represent the Buffalo of the 

 countries through which he passed. In the head which I consider 

 to be that of the male the horny sheaths are lost ; but the very 

 flattened compressed character of the horn-cores shows decidedly 

 that the horns resembled closely those exhibited in Pel's specimens. 

 In the specimens which I attribute to the female the horns are 

 present, and, with the exception of one particular, which I shall 

 mention presently, resemble so closely Captain Clapperton' s spe- 

 cimens that I have no doubt whatever but they belong to the 

 same species. This character consists in the points of the horns 

 of the older of Dr. Baikie's females being turned suddenly, and 

 pointed backwards in a manner exhibited very slightly in either of 

 Captain Clapperton's specimens. In the younger female from the 

 Niger this character is absent. But, remarkable as it may appear, 

 a similar variation is observable in the two specimens in the Leiden 

 Museum. That figured on the first plate in tbe work above referred 

 to represents the specimen in which the points of the horns are 

 turned boldly backwards and reclined, in a manner precisely similar 

 to that shown by the specimen now before the Society (figs. 1 & 2) ; 



