EXISTING KINDS OF WILD CATTLE 237 
fully appreciated by most of those who have not 
travelled there — where there is more or less free 
communication between all parts, it is only natural 
to expect that species of animals should display 
local variations of this nature, according to the 
exigencies of their surroundings, or from other 
causes with which we are at present unacquainted. 
On the foregoing view the dwarf red buffalo should 
be known as B. caffer nanus^ the third name having 
been originally applied to a detached pair of horns 
from the west coast, formerly in the collection of 
Gresham College, but now in the British Museum. 
Unfortunately, their exact place of origin is un- 
known, so that the typical locality of the race they 
represent must always remain unknown. In an 
earlier chapter it has been shown that red is the 
primitive or generalised, and black the specialised, 
type of colouring among cattle ; and the dwarf Congo 
buffalo may accordingly be regarded as representing 
the primitive, and the black Cape buffalo the most 
specialised, phase of the species ; but it must not 
be assumed that the one is the ancestor of the other, 
as the small forms may be degraded (see p. 265). 
As regards the races connecting the black Cape 
and red Ashanti, or Congo, phases of the species, 
these are so numerous and some of them so un- 
satisfactorily defined, that it would be merely weari- 
some to give a complete list.^ Accordingly it will 
suffice to refer to a few of those which are of special 
importance in showing the gradation from the two 
extreme types. 
Before referring to these it will, however, be well 
^ A list — complete to the date of writing only — will be found 
on page 70 of my Game Animals of Africa^ London, 1908. 
