The Bubal has been long introduced to the zoological gardens of Europe, and its name occurs in the MS. Catalogues of the Zoological Society as early as 1832. It bred in the Derby Menagerie, and the young one was figured in the drawings illustrative of that splendid collection (pl. xx.). It is not, however, very common in captivity, and of late years but few specimens have been received. At the present time there is only a single example of this Antelope in the Zoological Society’s collection. It is a female, presented by Mr. Robert Pitcairn, of Oran, in October 1883, and obtained, no doubt, in the interior of Western Algeria. Mr. Smit’s illustration (Plate I.) was prepared from this specimen.
The series of specimens of this Antelope in the British Museum is not by any means a full one. There are an adult male (stuffed) and an adult female (in skin) from the Zoological Society’s old collection, and a young one obtained by Fraser in the Djereed of Tunis in 1846, besides some pairs of horns and frontlets. Fresh examples of this species from definite localities would therefore be highly valued by the Trustees.
May, 1894.
2. THE WEST-AFRICAN BUBAL.
BUBALIS MAJOR (Blyth).
Boselaphus bubalis, var. 1, Gray, P. Z. S. 1850, p. 139 (?).
Alcelaphus bubalis, var. tunisianus, Gray, Cat. Ung. B. M. p. 123 (1852); id. Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 44 (1872) (?).
Boselaphus major, Blyth, P. Z. S. 1869, p. 52, fig. A 1 (horns).
Alcelaphus major, Gray, Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 44 (1872); id. Hand-l. Rum. p. 114 (1873).
“Bubalis lelwel, Heugl.,” Matsch. Arch. f. Nat. 1891, pt. i. p. 355 (Cameroons).
Bubalis major, Ward, Horn Meas. p. 62 (1892); Matsch. Mitth. deutsch. Schutzgebiet, vi. pt. iii. p. 17 (1893) (Togo); Lyd. Horns and Hoofs, p. 196 (1893).