1907.] RUDIMENTARY ANTLERS IN THE OKAPI. 127 



enough, the point and posterior margin of the bony cone are 

 polished as though it had protruded through the skin like a 

 cervine antler. The point is separated by a suture from the rest 

 of the ' ossicone,' forming a small terminal cap of bone a third of 

 an inch in depth. This curious structui-e, as well as a possible 

 second suture a little lower down the ossicone, was pointed out to 

 me by Dr. Forsyth Major, These appeai-ances will be figured in 

 that gentleman's memoir on the Brussels' specimens." This is 

 the first and so far the only published notice of the antler -like 

 tips of the Okapi's horns. The figure prepared by Dr. Major of 

 the section made by him through the end of this Okapi's ossicone 

 is reproduced in the text-figure here appended (text-fig. 49). 

 Dr. Major does not himself propose to publish anything fui^ther 

 at present on the Okapi, and the little drawing has been placed 

 in my hands by him. A tracing of it was also kindly sent to me 

 by M. Fraipont, of Liege. 



The further history of our knowledge of the horns of the 

 Okapi has been complicated by the arrival in Europe of various 

 specimens, concerning the sex of which either erroneous informa- 

 tion or none at all has been given by the natives from whom the 

 specimens were obtained. Thus Dr. Forsyth Major was led to 

 suppose that the female Okapi has a small unattached ossicone, 

 some two inches in length, when adult, but he subsequently came 

 to the conclusion that this supposed female was in reality a young 

 male. In ' La Belgique Coloniale,' No. 21, May 1902, Dr. Forsyth 

 Major wrote : — "L'Okapi possede deux cornes frontales, recouvertes 

 d'une peau velue, plus petites, de forme conique et presque verti- 

 cales chez la femelle; plus grandes, dirigees obliquement en 

 arri^re et en pen triangulaires chez le male." 



At a subsequent date Dr. Forsyth Major came to the conclu- 

 sion that the specimen supposed to be a female possessing smaU 

 ' ossicones, was in reality a young male (Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 ). 339), and that the female Okapi is hornless, whilst the 

 le possesses " horns " which make their appeai^ance as 

 conical structures, ossifying independently of the sub- 

 nes (as in the Girafie) and becoming firmly ankylosed 

 mtal bone in the adult — a boss-like upgrowth of which 

 o the structure of the comj)lete horn. 

 s little room for doubt that this is the true account of 

 r, though we still are in want of full information as to 

 icters of the adult female Okapi*. In a subsequent 

 ;ation I shall be able to give more precisely the characters 

 ) types of skull, supposed to be that of the horn-bearing 

 the hornless female, respectively. The skulls carrying 

 sed or merely loosely-attached bony cone on the f rontals 



o the uncertainty which exists as to the origin of skin and skull which 



)s sent home from Africa as belonging to one individual, whereas they 



in certain cases belong to distinct individuals, it is still doubtful as to 



vvuemer lue female Okapi has or has not in the adult condition a small knob-like 



protuberance of the integument, separable from the subjacent bone and representing 



the horn of the male. 



