452 
AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 
horns of the male shot by Kermit Roosevelt measure 47 
inches along the curve. Ward records a specimen from 
East Africa having a horn length of 61 inches. 
The Bongo 
Boocercus 
Boocercus Thomas, 1902, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. X, p. 309; type B. 
eurycerus isaaci. 
The genus was founded by Thomas on the character of 
the horned female in distinction to the hornless females of 
the genus Tragelaphus , to which it was formerly assigned 
under the supposition that the females were hornless. The 
horns are, moreover, much broader and heavier than in the 
bushbuck. The coloration is quite different from that of the 
most fully striped bushbucks, the pattern consisting of trans¬ 
verse white stripes without the longitudinal stripes found in 
the harnessed bushbuck. The tail is bovine like that of the 
eland, not bushy as in the bushbuck. In the horned char¬ 
acter of the female, the striped body, and bovine tail, the 
bongo resembles the eland and may be considered its forest 
representative. Only a single species is known, which ex¬ 
hibits wide, discontinuous distribution. 
The genus occurs on the West Coast of Africa from the 
mouth of the Congo River north along the Guinea coast to 
Sierra Leone, and again appears in the highlands of Brit¬ 
ish East Africa, where it ranges from the Mau Escarpment 
to Mount Kenia. 
Bongo 
Boocercus eurycerus isaaci 
Native Names: Kikuyu, ndongoro; ’Ndorobo, siroya. 
Range. —Highland forest of British East Africa from 
the Mau Escarpment eastward through the Kikuyu Escarp¬ 
ment and the Aberdare Range to Mount Kenia. Not found 
below an altitude of six thousand feet. 
The bongo was originally described by Ogilby as early as 
1836, from a pair of horns of unknown origin. The color¬ 
ation was not, however, known until 1861, when Du Chaillu 
described it from a skin which he had obtained in the forests 
