At a meeting of the Zoological Society of London in January 1893 Mr. Selous made another interesting communication on this Antelope, exhibiting a skull which he believed to be that of a hybrid between it and the Hartebeest. This curious animal was shot in 1890 on the Tati River, Matabeleland, by Cornelius van Rooyen, a well-known Boer hunter. While this skull, which is now in the British Museum, closely resembles that of the Hartebeest, its horns partake of the characters of both the supposed parents. They stand nearly straight up from the skull as in the Hartebeest, but are slightly lunate in form and ringed as in the Sassaby. Mr. Selous was informed that the general colour of its skin was precisely that of the Sassaby, but that it carried the comparatively large bushy tail of the Hartebeest. As hybrids amongst the larger mammals are excessively rare in a wild state, this occurrence is well worthy of record, and we have to thank the Zoological Society for kindly permitting us to use their woodcut to illustrate it.
Besides the typical frontlet of this species in the British Museum, already mentioned, there are a mounted pair in the Gallery obtained by Dr. Andrew Smith, and skeletons of both sexes made from specimens shot on the Manyame River, Mashonaland, by Mr. Selous.
The Sassaby is rarely seen in captivity. So far as we know, the only specimens ever brought alive to Europe are two females imported by Mr. C. Reiche, of Alfeld, from the Transvaal in 1888. One of these was sold to the Amsterdam Gardens (where Sclater inspected it in April 1889), and the other to the Antwerp Gardens.
Our figure of this species (Plate X.) was put on the stone by Mr. Smit from a sketch made for Sir Victor Brooke by Mr. Wolf.
January, 1895.
GENUS III. CONNOCHÆTES.
| Type. | |
| Connochætes, Licht. Mag. nat. Freund. Berl. vi. p. 152 (1814) | C. gnu. |
| Cemas, Oken, Lehrb. Naturgesch. iii. Zool. pt. ii. p. 727 (1816) | C. gnu. |
| Catoblepas, Ham. Sm. Griff. Cuv. An. K. iv. p. 366 (1827) | C. gnu. |
| Gorgon, Gray, P. Z. S. 1850, p. 139 | C. taurinus. |
| Butragus, Bly. apud Gray, Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 43 (1872) | C. taurinus. |
Size large, form thick and clumsy; the withers not disproportionately higher than the rump; head massive, with a broad and bristly muzzle; face with a large median tuft of thick black hairs uniting the suborbital tufts; nostrils widely separated, hairy within; neck maned; hoofs narrow; tail with its tuft reaching nearly to the ground, long-haired throughout; mammæ four.
Colour grey, brown, or black, the long hairs of the dorsal and throat manes and of the tail generally black, sometimes white.
Skull broad and heavy, not specially elongated; ends of premaxillæ expanded.