DWARF BUFFALOES. 235 



Before proceeding further, it may be remarked that the study 

 of the Dwarf Buffaloes of Western Africa is beset with great 

 difficulties owing to the fact that the localities of the type 

 specimens of Bos nanus, B. 2)lan{ceros, and B. centralis (all of 

 which are in the Museum) are unknown. 



Taking first the case of B. planicei-os, which was named from 

 a frontlet and horns of a very old bull, it appears that these are 

 racially inseparable from the younger pair of horns on which 

 B. centralis was based, and as there is some clue to the locality 

 where the latter were obtained, there is a presumption that the 

 former came from the same region. Now the type of B. centralis 

 was collected by a Mr. Dalton about the year 1854, and as 

 Mr. Thomas * has shown that at least some of Dalton's specimens 

 came from the Gambia, there is a presumption that this may 

 have been the case with the Buflfalo-horns. This presumption is 

 strengthened by the fact that these horns are indistinguishable 

 from those of Buffaloes killed in Gambia by Messrs. G. Fenwick 

 Owen and G. Russell Roberts, two specimens of which — a mounted 

 head and a skull, with horns — were presented by the former 

 gentleman to the Museum. This renders it practically certain 

 that the Gambian Buffalo is identical with B. centralis, which 

 appears to be inseparable from B. planiceros ; and I accordingly 

 apply the name B. caffer planiceros to the Gambian, or Sene- 

 gambian, Buffalo, with the proviso that if the type of planiceros 

 should be proved to be racially distinct from that of centralis- — ■ 

 which I believe to be an impossibility — the latter name would be • 

 available for the Gambian animal. The head from the Gambia, 

 presented by Mr. Owen to the Museum, is remarkable for the 

 bright orange tawny colour of the throat and upper part of 

 the chest, which, together with a patch of the same colour below 

 each ear, contrasts strongly from the slaty black of the rest of 

 the head. A similar bright orange tawny band characterises the 

 whole of the under surface of a cow from Sierra Leone (adjacent 

 to Southern Senegambia), which was living in the Zoological 

 Gardens at Antwerp in 1875 ; the colour of the upper-parts 

 being yellow — or rather, perhaps, khaki. This cow, which is 

 described and figured by Sir Victor Brooke in the Society's 

 'Proceedings' for 1875, p. 455, pi, liv., I accordingly take to 

 represent the female of B. c. planiceros \. 



Passing on to Gray's Bubalus hrachyceros, or Bos caffer hrachy- 

 ceros, as I prefer to call it, a difficulty has arisen with regard to 

 the sex of the type skulls brought by Denham and Clapperton 

 from the Lake Chad district. Hitherto I have regarded the 

 bigger of the two as representing an adult bull and the smaller 

 a full-grown cow, but the acqiiisition by the Museum of a larger 

 series of heads of female West African Bufialoes leaves no doubt 



* Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 8, vol. viii. p. 121, 1911. 



t Also figured in Brehm's ' Tierleben,' ed. 3, Sausetiere,, vol. iii. p. 320, 1891 ; the 

 figure being reproduced in the ' Roj'al Natural History,' vol. ii. p. 201. Brooke 

 incorrectly stated that it came from Senegal. 



16* 



