Subspecies b. C. d. castaneus.
Cephalophus dorsalis castaneus, Thos. P. Z. S. 1892, p. 421.
Subspecies a. C. d. typicus.
Size medium. Ears extremely short and broad. General colour bright chestnut-rufous, with a dark mesial stripe running from the nose to the tail, only interrupted at the crest, which is sometimes rufous. Centre line of face brown; superciliary streaks bright rufous. Crest variable, either black, mixed black and rufous, or wholly rufous. Dorsal stripe becoming absolutely black on the back, sometimes sharply defined throughout, sometimes broadening out on the withers into an ill-defined band passing down the shoulders towards the fore legs. Under surface, inner sides of limbs, and back of hams rufous like the sides; a black or blackish longitudinal patch present in the sternal region. Fore limbs brown, from the shoulder downwards, hind limbs from just above the heel. Tail black above throughout, the black covering nearly the whole breadth of the tail, white beneath terminally.
Horns placed about in the same straight line as the nasal profile, those of male about 2·8 inches long, slender, tapering, not thickened or roughened basally, the basal diameter going nearly five times in the length.
Skull with a remarkably short conical muzzle, the distance from the anterior rim of the orbit to the muzzle less than the zygomatic breadth. Anteorbital fossæ of medium depth. Mesial notch of palate about ⅕ inch in advance of the lateral ones.
Dimensions:—♀ (not fully adult). Height at withers 15 inches, ear 1·8, hind foot 6·7.
Skull: basal length (c.) 5·5 inches, greatest breadth 3·2, orbit to muzzle 3.
Hab. West Africa, from Sierra Leone to the Gold Coast, replaced in the Cameroons by C. d. castaneus.
Subspecies b. C. d. castaneus.