KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIBNS HANDLINGAR. BAND 48. NIO 5. 



149 



Bovidae. 



Bubalis cokei (Gunthbr). 



ScLATEE & Thomas: Book of Antelopes, Vol. I, p. 27. 



The »Kongoni» as Coke's Hartebeest usually is called in Brit. East Africa, is 

 the commonest Antelope on the great plains along the Uganda railroad in the southern 

 game reserve, and around Nairobi it is still common, although its numbers are dimi- 

 nished where the country has been settled. At Jiija farm Kongonis were abundant 

 on the open plains. It does not appear to extend its distribution north of Tana river, 

 at least not in the interior of the country. It was not seen on the acacia steppe 

 south ef Guaso Nyiri, although its companion on the Athi plains, Grant's Zebra, was 

 common there. 



In the »Book of Antelopes* it is quoted from Gedoe concerning this species: 



»The cows calve during the latter part of November and Decembers — . It 



is very possible that some of the cows calve at that time, and some calves which I 

 saw in the beginning of April appeared to be a few mouths old, while calves seen 

 from the train in the southern game reserve '■'*/i2 1910 looked to be more than a 

 month old. But Roosevelt's observation^ on the Athi plains where he says that^ 

 he found » new-born wildebeest and hartebeest ~ calves, and others several months 

 old> in the month of May is more in accordance with my own experience. I shot 

 for scientific purpose two Kongoni cows the 11*^ of April and both those contained 

 foetuses which were covered with hair and nearly full-grown. The majority of the 

 cows appeared at that time te be in the last stages of gravidity. But as already 

 mentioned there were also calves which probably had been borne some months earlier 

 their number was, however, less than that of the gravid cows. I saw only once a 

 Kongoni cow with twins. 



The dimensions of a male and female skull from Nairobi are as follows: 



Greatest length of skull . . . 



Basicranial length 



Greatest breadth ...... 



Least interorbital breadth . . 

 Greatest length of nasals 

 Width- of nasals in front . . 

 Length of upper molar series 



As can be seen the measurements of this cow are larger than those of the bull 

 which may depend upon the fact that the cow was unusually big, and the bull only 



1 sAfrican Game Trails», p. 292. 



