In 1879 Sclater received from Mr. Roland Trimen, F.R.S., then Curator of the South-African Museum, Capetown, a female specimen of a Dik-dik which had been obtained by Mr. Eriksson in Damaraland, and handed it over to Dr. Günther for determination. Dr. Günther described it, at a meeting of the Zoological Society of London in January 1880, as belonging to a new species, which he proposed to call “damarensis” after its locality. Dr. Günther pointed out that externally the new species resembled the Abyssinian M. saltiana very nearly, but was unmistakably different in cranial characters, which he described as follows:—“As in M. saltiana, the intermaxillary and lacrymal bones form a suture together. But the lateral branches of the intermaxillary are much narrower than in that species, and altogether of the same shape as in M. kirki; and the entire prelacrymal part of the snout is narrower than in M. saltiana, which is especially striking in the lower view of the snout (figs. 28 b and 28 c). Also with regard to the form and size of the nasal bones the new species is in some measure intermediate between the two other species. The suture, by which the nasals are united with the frontals, forms a much more obtuse angle than in M. saltiana, but is not a straight transverse line as in M. kirki. The size of these bones is the same as in the Abyssinian species. The hindermost molar of the lower jaw has a third lobe developed behind with a single enamel fold as in M. kirki. The nasal cavity seems to be as distensible as in the Abyssinian species.”
Mr. Trimen furnished Sclater with the following information respecting this specimen:—
“It was sent to me in March last from Damaraland by Mr. Eriksson, who has lately presented to us a male specimen. The Museum previously possessed a young male, also a Damaraland specimen, presented by the late Mr. James Chapman.... The colouring of the male and female is the same; but the adult male has straight horns 2¾ inches long, with prominent irregular ridges (seven in one example) circling their basal half. In the young male that we have the horns are 1 inch shorter, and there are only three undeveloped ridges.
“Mr. Eriksson informs me that this Antelope frequents rocky hills in the vicinity of Omaruru (about a degree north of Walvisch Bay), but is not easily procured, owing to its great agility among its stony haunts.”
Judging from the localities it would appear highly probable that the Dik-diks obtained on the River Cunene by the well-known Portugese collector d’Anchieta, and referred by M. Barboza du Bocage to M. saltiana, as also the skull in the Leyden Museum procured in Mossamedes by Mr. P. J. Van der Kellen, and assigned by Dr. Jentink in 1887 to “Cephalophus hemprichianus” will be found to belong to Madoqua damarensis, and that this species extends into the southern provinces of Angola, where the country is of the same character as in Damaraland.
December, 1895.
56. KIRK’S DIK-DIK.
MADOQUA KIRKI (Günth.).
Neotragus kirkii, Günth. P. Z. S. 1880, p. 17 (fig. head & skull) (Brava, S. Somaliland); Thos. P. Z. S. 1885, p. 222 (Kilima-njaro); Johnston, Kilima-njaro, p. 355 (1886); Hunter, in Willoughby’s E. Africa, p. 290 (1889); W. Scl. Cat. Mamm. Calc. Mus. ii. p. 166 (1891); Flow. & Lyd. Mamm. p. 338 (1891); Ward, Horn Meas. p. 79 (1892); Lyd. Horns and Hoofs, p. 215 (1893); Jackson, Badm. Big Game Shooting, i. pp. 285, 310 (1894); Matschie, Ost-Afr. Säugeth. p. 118 (1895).
Neotragus damarensis, True, P. U. S. Nat. Mus. xv. p. 477, pl. lxxx. (skull) (1892).
Madoqua kirkii, Thos. P. Z. S. 1894, p. 328.