Hab. Senegal and Gambia.
The Sing-sing of Western Africa appears to have first come to the notice of European naturalists in the year 1831, when a living pair of this Antelope were brought to England, of which one, we are told, went to the Surrey Zoological Gardens, and the other to the Zoological Society’s collection in Regent’s Park. In the ‘Report of the Council of the Zoological Society,’ read at the Anniversary Meeting in 1832, this animal is entered in the list of mammals exhibited in the Society’s Gardens (drawn up, we believe, by Mr. Bennett) as the “Sing-sing Deer (Cervus sing-sing)” In Waterhouse’s Catalogue of the Mammals in the Society’s Museum published in 1838, the same animal (then in the Museum) is entered more correctly as “Antilope sing-sing” but the specific term is attributed to “Ogilby.” In neither case, however, was any description added to the specific name. It is curious also that Ogilby, to whom the specific term “sing-sing” is attributed by Waterhouse, in his article upon Antelopes published in 1834 in the first volume of the ‘Penny Cyclopædia,’ did not use this name, but referred the animal in question, of which a very fair figure was given, to the “Koba” of Buffon, and called it “Antilope koba.” Ogilby appears to have taken the same view in his remarks on certain Antelopes published in the Zoological Society’s ‘Proceedings’ for 1836; but the “Koba” of Buffon, as we have already shown (Vol. I. p. 60), is a name of very uncertain application, and certainly not to be attributed to this species.
Gray, who likewise adopted the specific name “sing-sing” for this Antelope, appears first to have published a description of it under that name in the letterpress of the ‘Knowsley Menagerie’ in 1850, and in the ‘Proceedings’ of the Zoological Society for the same year. In the meanwhile, however, the name Antilope unctuosa had been bestowed upon it by Laurillard, in the first volume of the ‘Dictionnaire Universelle d’Histoire Naturelle,’ published in 1847, from a specimen living in the Menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes. There seems no doubt, therefore, that we ought to adopt Laurillard’s name for this Antelope, bestowed upon it because of its somewhat greasy fur.
Further confusion in its synonymy was caused from its being supposed by Gray and by many subsequent authors, nearly up to the present time, to be identical with the Defassa Antelope of Eastern Africa.
Gray, who probably derived his information from Whitfield, Lord Derby’s collector, tells us that this animal is called “Sing-sing” by the negroes of the Gambia, who do not think their flocks of cattle will be healthy or fruitful unless they have a tame Sing-sing in their company. The English on the Gambia are said to call it the “Jackass Deer,” and its flesh, we are told, is very strong, unpleasant, and scarcely palatable. Little, we regret to say, if anything, has been added to our knowledge of the habits of the Sing-sing in a state of nature and its range since the publication of Gray’s notes. None of the recent explorers of the western districts of Africa appear to have met with it, so that we may presume that its proper home is Senegal and the Gambia.
In captivity, however, singularly enough, the Sing-sing, as it is habitually called, is by no means scarce, and specimens of it may usually be found in the larger Zoological Gardens of the Continent. In several of these, for example at Antwerp and Berlin, and we believe in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, the Sing-sing has bred and produced young. In our own Zoological Gardens, as has been already stated, the first specimen of the Sing-sing was received in 1831 or 1832, but, so far as we can ascertain from reference to the Society’s books, no other examples were obtained until 1867 and 1868, in which years two females of this species were added to the collection. In December 1885 an adult male was obtained, and in November 1886 an adult pair was received in exchange from the Jardin des Plantes, Paris.
Our illustration of the Sing-sing (Plate XXXIII.) has been prepared by Mr. Smit from the last-named pair, the female of which is still living in the Menagerie.
August, 1896.
THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL. XXXIV.
