1894.] ON THE DWASF ANTELOPES OF THE GENUS MADOQUA. 323 



eight times at a few yards distance in the fearfully dense forest, 

 without once seeing them, and organizing a drive next day they 

 broke through the line ol: beaters and got away, making for the 

 distant G-alla Hills. These are the only Buffaloes I ever heard of 

 in Somaliland. 



They are said by the Gallas to be plentiful on the Webbe Web, 

 a tributary of the Juba, three days distant from Karanle. 



2. On the Dwarf Antelopes of the Genus Madoqua. 

 By Oldfield Thomas, F.Z.S. 



[Received March 17, 1894.] 



The genus Madoqua (by which name, as Mr. Sclater has pointed 

 out, Neotragus of most authors should be known *) consists up to 

 the present of three species — M. saltiana, Blainv., from Abyssinia, 

 M. kirJd, Griinth., from S. Somali and E. Africa, and M. dama- 

 rensis, Giinth.", from Damaraland. During the recent opening up 

 of the fauna of Somaliland, the Xorth-Somali specimens, without 

 any very detailed comparison, have been referred to M. saltiana, 

 and the Central-Somah ones to M. kirJci, these being indeed their 

 nearest allies in each case ; but now, on a careful examination of 

 the whole genus, which has been helped by the further material 

 recently collected by Capt. H. Gr. C. Swayne, and presented to the 

 Museum by IVIr. Sclater, I have come to the conclusion not only 

 that these two are each different from the species to which they 

 have been respectively referred, but also that there is a third Somali 

 species, different again from the other two. I have therefore now 

 to describe all three species as new. 



It happens most unfortunately that a good deal of the material 

 before me has been collected by sportsmen who have not been 

 tramed as professional collectors, and who, in crossing the ranges 

 of the three Somali species, have killed and brought home a number 

 of skins and skulls, but the exact reference of these each to the 

 other is not always quite certain. By care in the selection of type 

 specimens, however, risk of error from this cause is minimized, much 

 as it has added to my difficulties in working out the genus. 



The genus is readily divisible into two very distinct groups, of 

 which M. saltiana and M. Tcirhi are respectively typical ; the 



1 Madoqua, Ogilb. P. Z. S. 1836, p. 137. Type M. saltiana, Blainv, 



Neotragus, Gray et auet. plurim. (nee H. Sm. in Grriif. An. King. iv. p. 269. 

 Type N. pygirumts, L.). 



The genus which has hitherto borne the name of Nanotragus, Sund. (1846), 

 must therefore now be known by that of Neotragus. 



^ Mr. True, in his paper on the Mammals of Kilima-njaro (P. TJ. S. Nat. Mus. 

 XV. p. 477, 1892), has suggested that M. kirki and M. damarensis are the same, 

 and uses for them the latter of these two names, unaccountably as it appears 

 to me, kirki having been the first described. In my opinion, however, 

 M. damarensis is really distinct from M. kirkii, being considerably larger than 

 the latter, as may be seen by the synopsis and measurements given below. 



