352 ON THE LARGEK MA5IMAI.S OF TUKISIA. [May 3, 



lu the district of Mateur in Northern Tunis there is a rather 

 remarkable herd of Buffaloes — about fifty in number. They are 

 said to be descended from a few domestic Buffaloes of the Indian 

 species presented forty years ago or more by a King of Naples to 

 the Bey of Tunis. They were placed on a property of the Bey's 

 where there is a large swampy lake, in the middle of which rises a 

 mountainous island. Here they have resumed the feral state, and, 

 pdging from several heads I have seen, are developing much 

 longer horns than those of the domestic Buffalo of Italy. These 

 creatures are now strictly preserved by the Bey, and it is useless 

 to ask for permission to shoot them, as it is always withheld. 



The Bubaline Antelope {Buhalis bosdaphus) formerly found in 

 Tunisia is now quite extinct there, I hear, though it is still 

 found in Southern Algeria and in the Ti-ipolitaine. It must have 

 extended its range once into Central or even Northern Tunisia, 

 judging \)\ the frequency of its appearance in Eoman frescoes and 

 mosaics. I am informed by a German naturalist, Mr. Spatz, that 

 in the districts where it still lingers in Tripoli it affects plateaux 

 with a fair amount of vegetation, rather thau the sandy desert 

 which is the home of the Addax. The Hartebeest is known to 

 the Arabs by the name of Bagar-al-hamra — " the Eed Cow." 



The Addax {Addax naso-maculatus) is still a Tunisian animal, 

 though it is rarely heard of now north of the limits of the real 

 sandy desert. In my recent journey into the Tunisian Sahara I 

 saw a fresh-killed head brought in by an Arab, and found the 

 horns and skins abundant and cheap as articles of purchase. In 

 this manner I obtained two fine specimens of male horns and one 

 vei-y good female head. I saw in the possession of a French 

 officer — and drew for the ' Book of Antelopes ' — a pair of male 

 Addax horns which attained a third complete turn. The horns of 

 the female have only one turn or twist, are much slenderer and 

 more curved in genei-al outline, and altogether more orygine in 

 appearance. Tet they suggest, as do those of the male still 

 more strikingly, an equal atfinity to the immature male and to the 

 female horns of the Sable Antelope. The Addax, I think, is on 

 the whole more an orygine type than a hippotragine, but it probably 

 branched off from the parent stock of both groups not long after 

 they — in my opinion — developed from the Cobus group through 

 some form like Cohvs maric^. 



In the Tunisian Sahara the Arabs report the existence of a true 

 Oryx — seemingly Oryx Jeucori/x. A small specimen of this Ante- 

 lope (immature) is to be seen — stuffed — in the Bey"s Natural 

 History Collection at the Marsa near Tunis. It is also remarkable 

 that the Oryx is represented as a Tunisian animal in the Eoman 

 frescoes and mosaics now preserved in the Bardo Museum. 



TheUdad, or B.-irbary Wild Sheep, is still common in the moun- 

 tains of Southern Tunisia. The Barbary Stag is found in some 

 abundance in the well-wooded mountains of the West, along the 

 Algerian frontier. It is now carefully protected by the Fi-ench and 

 has begun to revive in numbers, having been once nearly extinct. 



