Head of Bubalis tora.
(P. Z. S. 1873, p. 762.)
In December of the same year Sclater exhibited a mounted head of this Antelope at one of the meetings of the Zoological Society, from whose ‘Proceedings’ the accompanying figure of the specimen in question (fig. 2) has been borrowed by leave of the Publication Committee.
Two years later, in July 1875, a female example of this Antelope was obtained alive for the Zoological Society’s Menagerie; and in the following year, in October, a fine pair of the Tora was purchased by the Society for the sum of £100, of Mr. Carl Hagenbeck, the well-known dealer of Hamburg. These animals had been obtained along with others from the Arabs of Upper Nubia and brought out viâ Kassala and Suakim by Mr. Hagenbeck’s agents. Other specimens of the Tora from the same source reached several zoological gardens on the Continent about the same date; but we believe that they have one and all disappeared, and, so far as we know, the Tora is no longer to be seen anywhere in captivity.
There is a good pair of this Antelope in the Gallery of the British Museum mounted from skins stated to have been procured at Dembelas, in Northern Abyssinia. There are also a skeleton and other specimens from the same locality in the National Collection.
May, 1894.
THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES. PL. II.
Smit lith.
Hanhart imp.