Nanotragus montanus, Brooke, P. Z. S. 1872, pp. 642 & 875; W. Scl. Cat. Mamm. Calc. Mus. ii. p. 166 (1891); Flow. & Lyd. Mamm. p. 339 (1891); Ward, Horn Meas. p. 82 (1892); Lyd. Horns and Hoofs, p. 218 (1893); Jackson, Badm. Big Game Shooting, pp. 285 & 299 (1894).
Antilope madoqua, Schweinfurth, Herz. von Afrika, i. p. 266, fig. head, ii. p. 535 (1874) (nec H. Sm., nec Rüpp.).
Vernacular Names:—H’Amra, Atrob, or Odrob in Arabic; Fiego in Amharic; Waital in Geez (Heuglin); Lohdj in Dinka; Nettjäde in Djur; Heggoleh in Bongo; Kullah in Mittu; Bongbaljah in Niam-niam; Laffa in Golo; Kehdo in Kredj; Ngogoh in Ssehre; Akonj in Shilluk (Schweinfurth).
Similar to O. scoparia in most respects, but the tail shorter, less bushy, and almost wholly of the colour of the back, the terminal black tuft being reduced to a few darker hairs at the extreme tip; there are also a considerable number of white hairs along each side of it below. Auricular gland large, quite naked.
Skull dimensions (♂):—Basal length 5·65 inches, greatest breadth 2·95, muzzle to orbit 3·44.
Hab. Abyssinia and Bongoland.
As already pointed out, the Abyssinian representative of this group differs slightly in structure from the forms of the Oribi of which we have previously spoken. Its specific name would also indicate that it is an inhabitant of a higher district, although Rüppell tells us that when he sent the original specimen from Senaar in 1823 he had given it in his Manuscript “a far more appropriate” one. Be that as it may, Cretzschmar, who undertook the description of the vertebrates transmitted by Rüppell to the Museum Senckenbergianum before the return home of the latter, chose to call it “montana” and this term cannot now, of course, be altered.
The original specimen of Ourebia montana was obtained by Rüppell’s collector Hey (after whom Hey’s Partridge, Ammoperdix heyi, was subsequently named by Temminck) on the hills of Fazogloa on the Blue Nile in 1823. Rüppell afterwards found many individuals of it on the high plains of Woggera in the neighbourhood of Gondar and in the valleys of the Kulla, where they resort to the grassy ravines and thorny jungles. He remarks that only the male carries horns, but that both sexes have a pair of inguinal glands, the openings of which are concealed by long tufts of white hair. The female has four teats. He also remarks that (as he communicated to the Zoological Society of London, of which Rüppell was a Foreign Member, in 1836) the young males of this Antelope occasionally possess the germs of a pair of canine teeth, which are lost in the adult stage. This anomaly, however, has also been noticed in other Ruminants.
Theodor von Heuglin met with this Antelope in several districts of Central and West Abyssinia at elevations of from 6000 to 8000 feet above the sea-level. He remarks that it prefers the rocky and bushy parts of the steppes, and often cries out like a Roebuck when struck by a shot. Dr. W. T. Blanford, F.R.S., found this Antelope rare in the country traversed by the Abyssinian Expedition of 1867–68. He saw it only two or three times, near Dolo and Harkhallet, north of Antalo, at an elevation of about 7000 feet above the sea-level, where it inhabits bushy ground or high grass. A buck shot by Mr. Blanford was 22½ inches high at the shoulder, the mammæ were four in number, and the suborbital and inguinal glands were well developed. We learn from Mr. W. L. Sclater’s ‘Catalogue,’ that one of Mr. Blanford’s skins is now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta.
Finally Dr. Giglioli includes the Abyssinian Oribi amongst the mammals of which specimens have been transmitted to Italy from Shoa by the Italian naturalists Boutourline and Traversi. Dr. Giglioli observes that the sexes were alike in colour in these specimens, but that the male was rather larger in size than the hornless female.