Antilope (Raphicerus) subulata, H. Sm. Griff. An. K. iv. p. 253 (fig. horns), v. p. 342 (1827); Less. Compl. Buff. x. p. 292 (1836); Gerv. Dict. Sci. Nat. Suppl. i. p. 262 (1840); Less. N. Tabl. R. A., Mamm. p. 177 (1842).
Pediotragus tragulus grayi, Fitz. SB. Ak. Wien, lix. pt. 1, p. 163 (1869).
Vernacular Names:—Steinbok of Dutch and English Colonists; Iquia of Kaffirs (Drummond); Ingnweena or Umgwena of Matabilis; Puruhuru of Bechuanas; Ee-peu-nee of Makalakas; Kahu of Masubias; Kimba of Batongas; Gai-ee of Masaras (Selous); Shipeni of Transvaal Shangeans; Njena of Swazis (Rendall); Ishah of E. African Swahilis (Hunter).
Size small. General colour bright sandy rufous, richer on the head. Top of muzzle and a horseshoe-shaped marking on the crown generally brown, but these marks are by no means constant. A white supraorbital stripe, much as in the Oribi. No auricular gland. No knee-tufts nor false hoofs present. Tail short, coloured above like the back, below whitish, no black tip.
Skull stoutly built, its upper surface peculiarly roughened and ridged. Premaxillæ reaching to, and articulating with, the nasals.
Horns, in proportion to the size of the animal, longer than in the Oribis, very slender, smooth, and practically unridged throughout. Their direction is nearly vertical, and they are slightly curved forwards.
Dimensions, ♂:—Height at withers 19·5 inches, length of hind foot 9·7, ear 4·2.
Skull: basal length 4·86 inches, greatest breadth 2·68, muzzle to orbit 2·6.
Hab. South Africa, from the Cape to the Zambesi and on the west to the Cunene.
The Steinbok became known to the Forsters and Thunberg through the Dutch settlers at the Cape at about the same date as the Grysbok, and in 1811 received the scientific name Antilope campestris from the latter author in his memoir, published by the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, to which we have already alluded. Three years later Lichtenstein in his article upon the species of Antilope published in the Magazine of the “Gesellschaft naturforschender Freunde” of Berlin, proposed the name Antilope tragulus, but under this designation united both the Steinbok and the Grysbok, as well as the pale variety of the latter species which the Dutch settlers called the “Bleekbok.” In uniting the Steinbok and Grysbok under one head Lichtenstein was clearly in error, the structural difference presented by the absence of accessory hoofs, as well as the divergence in the colour of the fur, sufficiently distinguishing the present species from the Grysbok. Lichtenstein no doubt derived his ideas upon this subject from Forster’s manuscripts, as the same view is taken in Forster’s posthumous work ‘Descriptiones Animalium,’ when it was tardily published in 1844. Under these circumstances there can be no doubt, we think, that “campestris” is the proper specific term to be employed for the present species.