Nanotragus hastatus, Brooke, P. Z. S. 1872, p. 642; Flow. & Lyd. Mamm. p. 339 (1891); Lyd. Horns and Hoofs, p. 219 (1893).
Nanotragus scoparius, Thos. P. Z. S. 1893, p. 504, 1894, p. 146 (Nyasa).
Scopophorus montanus, Matschie, Thierw. Ost-Afr. Säugeth. p. 121.
Vernacular Name:—Dutsa at Senna (Peters).
Similar in all respects to O. scoparia, except that the auricular gland is considerably larger and more conspicuous, and the tail is slenderer, less tufted, and is more or less white along its edges below.
Skull and horns apparently quite as in O. scoparia.
Hab. Mozambique and Nyasaland.
When the late Dr. William Peters made his great expedition to the Portuguese colony of Mozambique from 1842 to 1848 the Zoology of the Eastern Coast of Africa was almost unknown to us. Many, therefore, were the discoveries made by that distinguished traveller and naturalist, and subsequently described in his ‘Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique.’ Amongst them, in the volume devoted to the Mammals of the Expedition, we find a figure and description of the present Antelope, which was met with by Peters on the bush-clad plains of Sena and Shupanga, situated about 17° S. lat., and from 30 to 60 miles from the coast. Peters allows that the present form comes very near the typical O. scoparia, but considers that it differs in its longer ears, the smaller size of the naked spot beneath the ear, the white underside of the tail, and the less compressed form of the hoofs. Peters’s specimens are in the Berlin Museum.
More recently the British Museum has acquired several skins of an Antelope, which should be the same, to judge from its locality, as Peters’s O. hastata, among the splendid collections amassed by Sir H. H. Johnston in Nyasaland with the aid of his naturalist Mr. Alexander Whyte, F.Z.S. These were obtained on the grassy plains between Zomba, where Mr. Whyte is resident, and Lake Shirwa. These materials, however, are not yet sufficient to enable us to pronounce a decided opinion as to whether this Oribi should be really treated of as a species distinct from its brother of the Cape Colony. The two forms certainly come very near one another, and we are rather doubtful whether they can be properly distinguished.
December, 1895.