206 
Dimensions :— ¢. Height at withers 23 inches, ear 4°3, hind foot 10°3. 
Skull: basal length 7:2 inches, greatest breadth 3:3, anterior rim of orbit 
to muzzle 4:4. 
Hab. South Africa, extending on the west northwards to Angola and on 
the east up to British East Africa and Somaliland. 
The little Antelope called at the Cape the “ Duiker” or “ Diver,” not from 
its going into the water, but from its ‘‘ diving” so quickly into the bushes when 
alarmed, has been more or less perfectly known to the naturalists of Europe 
for the past 200 years. Described by Grimm in 1686 as the Capra sylvestris 
ufricana it was dedicated to that naturalist by Linneeus, when he adopted the 
binomial system, as the Capra or Moschus grimmia. This term, slightly 
modified in accordance with modern usage, we propose to adopt as its specific 
name. Other early names bestowed upon it were Antilope nictitans by 
Thunberg, of whose travels to the Cape we have already spoken, and Antilope 
mergens by Blainville, while various appellations, which are specified in our 
synonymy, were given to this species and its varieties by Andrew Smith, 
Hamilton Smith, Gray, and Fitzinger. 
In his important work on the ‘Game and Wild Animals of Southern 
Africa,’ as they existed in 1836 and 1837, Cornwallis Harris figures the 
“ Duiker” as a companion of the Pallah and speaks of it as common 
throughout the Cape Colony, especially towards the sea-coast, among the 
bushes and brush-wood. ‘This experienced observer states that every female 
specimen of the Duiker that he had seen possessed short horns, nearly, if not 
totally obscured by the tuft on the head ; this, we shall see, is contrary to the 
observations of some other writers. From the text of Harris’s volume we 
extract his lively account of the Duiker and its habits:—‘‘ The smaller 
Antelope, delineated in the annexed plate, is a denizen of the same locale as 
the Pallah ; and although claiming from its diminutive stature an extremely 
limited portion of attention, was yet never neglected when accident placed 
it in our way. The pair which furnished the originals of this portrait 
were on my own shoulders borne three miles to the waggons from one 
of the central steppes of the Cashan mountains, whither, having gone out 
alone, I killed the buck as he sat on a projecting ledge—knocking over 
his disconsolate relict with the second barrel as she stood gazing in 
