To the east and south of the Niger Delta, Maxwell’s Duiker appears to be represented by the present species, which, as we have explained above, is of the same size and closely resembles it in most particulars.
The Black-rumped Duiker was first described by Gray in an article on new species of this group, published in the ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History’ for 1846, from specimens in the British Museum, transmitted from Fernando Po by James Thompson, one of Lord Derby’s collectors. Shortly afterwards it was figured in the ‘Knowsley Menagerie ’ by Waterhouse Hawkins from living specimens brought home by the same traveller.
We will now endeavour to give some idea of the range of this still imperfectly-known species. Beginning on the north, we find skins of it in the British Museum obtained in the wooded district of Cameroons and transmitted to the British Museum by the late Captain Burton and by Crossley, besides the typical specimens received from Fernando Po, which were probably originally obtained from the adjoining mainland. Herr Matschie, in an article on the Mammals of the Cameroons, published in 1891, likewise records the occurrence of this species in the Wuté district of that country, as testified by a skull sent to Berlin by Lieut. Morgen. From Gaboon there is a skin of an adult male in the British Museum, obtained by Mr. DuChaillu, and a specimen in the Berlin Museum procured by Buchholtz. To the south of the Congo this Duiker has been obtained at Capangombé in Angola by the well-known Portuguese collector Anchieta. M. de Bocage in 1878 based a new species on these specimens and proposed to dedicate it to M. d’Anchieta, having been misled by the indifferent figure and imperfect description of C. melanorheus given in the ‘Knowsley Menagerie.’ But there appears to be no reasonable doubt that they may be properly referred to C. melanorheus.
How far the Black-rumped Duiker extends over the forests of the Congo basin is, as yet, quite uncertain. The authorities of the Congo Free State have, up to the present time, persistently neglected to obtain any accurate information of the zoology of the great region which they have occupied. The little we know of the animals of this wide area is based upon fragmentary specimens obtained by passing explorers. It is very probable, however, that C. melanorheus may range over nearly the whole of the great woody basin of the Congo and its tributaries. But when we come to the eastern slope of Africa, from various parts of which specimens referred to this species have been received, we meet, as Sundevall has pointed out, with a slightly different form, which for the present it is proposed to regard as a subspecies (following Fitzinger) as Cephalophus melanorheus sundevalli.
The fact is that, as regards these small Duikers, a far better series from the various points of their range must be rendered accessible before we can come to any accurate determination as to their systematic arrangement and distribution. Herr Matschie informs us that some specimens received in Berlin from Dar-es-Salaam, in German East Africa, rather more resemble C. monticola than C. melanorheus; so here is another riddle yet unsolved.
August, 1895.
34. THE UGANDA DUIKER.
CEPHALOPHUS ÆQUATORIALIS, Matsch.
Antilope grimmia, Schweinf. Herz. v. Afrika, i. p. 267 (fig. of head), ii. p. 535 (1874).
Cephalolophus æquatorialis, Matsch. SB. Ges. nat. Freund. 1892, p. 112 (Chagwè); Scott-Elliot, P. Z. S. 1895, p. 341.
Cephalophus æquinoctialis, Lyd. Horns and Hoofs, p. 209 (1893).