28 
The first recorded specimen of Coke’s Hartebeest was a frontlet obtained 
by the German traveller Von der Decken in 1862 at Lake Jipe in Masailand. 
These horns were referred by Peters, in his account of the mammals of 
Von der Decken’s expedition, to B. caama of the Cape. But Sir Victor 
Brooke, who subsequently examined them at Berlin, as we know from his 
MSS., was convinced of their distinctness from the species of the Cape 
Colony, and had determined to call the new species after Von der Decken, 
although he never published the name. The subjoined figures (4a and 4 0) 
were prepared under Sir Victor Brooke’s direction, and show a front view and 
a three-quarter view of these horns. 
Fig. 4a. 
Horns of Bubalis cokei, front view. 
In June 1880 Col. the Hon. W. C. W. Coke, F.Z.S., a renowned English 
sportsman, started from Zanzibar on a shooting-expedition towards Mpapwa, 
along the caravan-route from the port of Saadani. On reaching the open 
plains on the plateau of Usagara he met with several herds of this Antelope, 
and obtained the frontlet (fig. 4¢), now in the British Museum, upon which 
the species was established by Dr. Gunther. 
Colonel Coke has kindly permitted us to refer to his journal, in which we 
find it recorded that he first met with this Hartebeest on June 28th, between 
the Missionary Stations of Mamboia and Mpapwa. On July 10th, when 
encamped near M’lalli, at the edge of the plains, though sick with fever, he 
