ZOOLOGY 
3°3 
The buffalo of British Central Africa is the type known as the Cape Buffalo 
{Bos caffer). The range of this species probably extends from South Africa up 
the eastern half of the continent to the Victoria Nyanza, the White Nile, 
and Somaliland. Its place in Abyssinia and the Egyptian and Central Sudan is 
taken by another variety or species known as the Central African Buffalo. 1 2 It 
extends into West Africa as far as the southern boundaries of the district 
of Angola proper and thence over the whole Zambezi region into the south and 
east of the Congo Free State, reaching more than half-way up the coast of 
Tanganyika and being found on the upper waters of the Lualaba and Kasai. 
Thenceforward to the north and west its place is taken by the curious short¬ 
horned red buffalo of West Africa, which is the only species found in the forest 
part of the Congo Basin and along the west coast and in Nigeria. 
It may be interesting to give here a drawing of the horns of this forest 
buffalo of the Congo, which I did at Bolobo 
on the Upper Congo some years ago. On 
the whole I am disposed to regard the forest 
. buffalo of West Africa as rather a degenerate 
than a primitive type of buffalo. It is evidently 
a deteriorated race of the Bos caffer? 
Buffaloes are very abundant all over 
British Central Africa, but of course are 
retiring from the vicinity of European settle¬ 
ments. They are also frequenters of the 
plain rather than the mountains, though they 
will ascend high plateaux in the dry season 
for the sake of the green herbage. The 
favourite places of their resort are wide 
marshy districts like the Elephant Marsh near Chiromo, where even after the 
most wanton and indiscriminate slaughter at the hands of Europeans 3 they 
exist in large numbers—thousands, it is said. Like the Indian buffalo they 
are fond of wallowing in mud and water, though perhaps not as aquatic in 
their habits as the last-named animal. They are dangerous beasts to tackle 
under certain conditions though less dangerous than the elephant and lion. 
It is seldom that they will take aggressive action against the sportsman when 
not wounded. 4 
1 Bos cequinoctialis. This variety of buffalo is much more interesting than appears from the meagre 
accounts given of it by all naturalists. It is to some degree a connecting link between the African 
and Indian buffaloes. The horns are much longer, and are directed farther backwards than in the Cape 
buffalo. There is not such an exaggerated boss on the forehead. 
2 The most primitive known buffalo or ox is the Anoa of the island of Celebes. This creature shows 
signs of affinities with the Tragelaphs (a group of [so called] bovine antelopes, to which the Nilgai, the Kudu, 
Eland, and Bushbuck belong). Even at the present day with the aid of the Philippine Islands buffalo, 
there are existing a series of gradations leading up to the long-horned buffalo of India, and thence through 
the Central African buffalo to the Cape species which may be regarded as the culmination of Bubaline 
development at the present day. But fossil remains from both North and South Africa show us that there 
existed buffalo in this continent in past ages the development of whose horns was gigantic though perhaps 
not as extravagant even as some extinct Indian species. Mr. Lydekker states that a fossil buffalo skull 
from South Africa showed horn cores which were 14 feet long, and to this length must, of course, be added 
that of the horn covering—a foot or so longer. One weeps to think of the degenerate days in which we 
live. The big game we pursue are but small deer compared with the glorious beasts which surrounded our 
pithecoid ancestors. 
3 Now checked by this stretch of country having been declared a Government Game Reserve. 
4 Occasionally out of stupid curiosity or because the traveller is standing in the way of a newly 
born buffalo calf, buffaloes will advance unprovoked to the attack. I remember visiting the Songwe plains 
at the north end of Lake Nyasa in 1889 for the purpose of sport, accompanied by the late Mr. Kydd. 
HORNS OK CONGO BUFFALO 
