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from Liberia, where Herr Biittikofer and his fellow-explorers of that 
Republic, as recorded by Dr. Jentink, met with it in many localities and 
obtained a good series of specimens of it for the Leyden Museum. 
In his ‘ Reisebilder aus Liberia’ Biittikofer tells us that this Antelope is 
universally known to the Liberians as the “ Red Deer,” and is found where- 
ever the forest is interspersed with meadows and plantations. Its palatable 
meat is often brought to the market in Moravia. It is the more easily 
obtained by the hunter because it is by no means shy, and often comes to 
feed into the vegetable-gardens adjoining the planters’ dwellings. It is also 
frequently caught alive, and does well in captivity. 
Pel, another well-known collector for the Leyden Museum, obtained for 
that institution examples of this Antelope on the Gold Coast, and there are 
specimens of it in the British Museum from Fantee, and from Mount Victoria 
in the Cameroons. We may therefore consider it established that the typical 
form of Tragelaphus scriptus is found all along the wooded districts of 
Western Africa from the Senegal River to the Cameroons. But as we 
proceed further south soon after this a slight alteration in the characters of 
this Antelope begins to appear. 
Hamilton Smith, writing in Griffith’s ‘ Animal Kingdom’ in 1827, was the 
first to notice differences in the specimens of this species from the Congo, 
which had been sent home by Tuckey’s Expedition, and proposed to name the 
Congo form Antilope phalerata. M. Pousargues, who has recently published 
an excellent essay on the Mammals of French Congo-land, informs us that 
only one of three specimens of this Antelope received at Paris from that 
country presented the special difference upon which Hamilton Smith mainly 
based his species—that is, the absence of the longitudinal white stripe on 
the shoulder and flanks,—and states his opinion that this character is of no 
systematic value. This opinion is supported by the fact that in one of the 
two bucks, referred to later on, from Senegambia, now living in the Society’s 
Gardens, the stripe in question is very conspicuous, whereas in the other it 
is faintly defined and very short. It is significant, too, that the latter animal 
is the larger and apparently the older of the two. Hence it is not unlikely 
that the stripe tends to disappear in old individuals and that the type of 
T. phaleratus was nothing but an aged example of TZ. scriptus. However 
that may be, our knowledge of the Congo form is too incomplete to admit of 
our regarding it as distinct from the typical Senegambian 7. scriptus. 
VOL. IV. Q 
