,60 Great and Small Game of Africa 



THE ROYAL ANTELOPE 



Genus Neotragus 



The royal antelope (N. pygmceus), which forms the type of the 

 Neotragimc, is so closely allied to the sunis, that the advisability of separ- 

 ating the latter as a distinct genus may be questionable. The chief dis- 

 tinction of the former is to be found in the extreme shortness of the 

 horns, which do not project behind the back of the head, and the absence 

 of the unossified spaces in the neighbourhood of the nose-bones found in 

 the skull of the sunis. R- Lvdekkek. 



The Royal Antelope (Neotragus pygmaus) 

 Sang of the Veys in Liberia 



This animal is the smallest of all the ruminants, and stands about 

 10 inches at the shoulder. "General colour bright rufous-fawn, browner 

 on the head and fore-back, richer posteriorly and on sides of neck and 

 flanks. Chin and under surface pure sharply-defined white. Limbs 

 rufous, except a narrow line down the posterior side of the fore and the 

 anterior side of the hind ones, which are white. 



"Tail about 24 inches long, without its tuft, which is bright rufous 

 above, except at its tip, where it is pure white, as it is also below. 



" Horns less than an inch long, sharply pointed, perfectly smooth and 

 without transverse annulations at the base. 



" Habitat. — The forests of West Africa from Liberia to Ashanti." ' 



Bosnian, in 1704, published at Utrecht an account of the royal ante- 

 lope. He mentions that the feet were made into pipe-stoppers, and that 

 the negroes called it the king of the harts. This has no doubt originated 



1 From Tie Bmk of Jntelapes, to which the writer is indebted for other details, 



