Vernacular Names:—Jimela of Uniamwezi (Matschie); Topi, Tope, or Topee of Swahili; Nemira of Uganda (Lugard).
Size small, height at withers 43–44 inches. Fur very short and close, but mingled with it there are numerous patches of longer hairs, so that a somewhat brindled appearance is produced. General colour a peculiar purplish brown, blackish on face and chin, shoulders, and round the upper fore legs and thighs, but these darker markings are not really black and are not sharply defined. Hams scarcely lighter than the rest. Limbs and feet without dark patches, except that the backs of the pasterns are black. Fur on face directed upwards, from the extreme tip between the nostrils up to the horns, without break. Tail reaching just to the hock, its terminal half black-crested.
Skull comparatively small, with an unusually long nasal region; the nasal bones very long and narrow. Basal length (♀) 13·3 inches, greatest breadth 5·2, muzzle to orbit 9·5.
Horns as in the Korrigum, but shorter and slenderer; those of a female 16·4 inches in length.
Hab. British East-African coast, from the River Juba to the River Sabaki, and extending thence into Uganda and Uniamwezi.
The “Topi,” as we propose to designate another local representative of the Korrigum, from the native name given to it by the Swahili, has been known for some years to the sportsmen who have visited British and German East Africa as an abundant Antelope in certain districts, and has been generally called by them the “Senegal Antelope,” from being supposed to be the same as the “Korrigum.” But, as Herr Matschie first pointed out, it differs from the typical Senegal form in the absence of the black band on the inner side of the thigh, in the front legs being black down to the hoofs, and in the restriction of the black on the hinder flanks to the hips.
So far as we know, Sir John Kirk, then Consul-General at Zanzibar, was the first to obtain examples of this fine Antelope on the East Coast. Sir John has kindly supplied us with the following notes on this species:—
“The ‘Tope,’ or Senegal Antelope, was very common on the maritime plain of Formosa Bay when I first went to Zanzibar in 1866; before I left, in 1886, it had become rather rare near the coast. On the maritime plain it used to be seen in numerous herds of from 5 to 20. The herds of Tope generally kept alone, but you would see the herds of Gazella granti grazing near by. I am, however, not satisfied that this Gazelle was the real Gazella granti, for the horns seem to show a permanent difference of sweep.
“However, to return to the Tope, I may say that I shot it again on the south bank of the River Juba.
“The River Sabaki (near Malindi) is, so far as I know, the southern limit of the species on the coast; I have little doubt that further inland it may be met with further south, just as you find the Oryx, the Vulturine Guinea-fowl, and other species (which never occur south of the River Sabaki on the coast), to be common if you go inland, and in a latitude far south of Malindi, such as at Mpwapwa in Usagara.