Skull measurements (♀):—Basal length 9·75 inches, greatest breadth 4·15, orbit to muzzle 6·45.
Hab. Upper Nile, region of the Sobat, Bahr-el-Gazal, and their affluents, extending into the Niam-Niam country.
The first example of this Antelope to reach Europe was transmitted to the Royal Zoological Museum of Berlin by Werne, a well-known German artist and traveller, from the River Sobat in Sennaar. It was characterized as belonging to a new species by Lichtenstein and Peters in a communication made to the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin in 1853, and in the following year was carefully described and figured by the same authors in the ‘Denkschriften’ of the Academy. The type specimen, an adult male, remains mounted in the gallery of the Berlin Museum (where Sclater has examined it), and is, we believe, that from which the original water-colour drawing of Wolf for the accompanying Plate was prepared.
The next traveller who appears to have met with the White-eared Kob was Consul Petherick, who brought home a skin, two heads, and several skulls of this species on his return from the Bahr-el-Ghazal in 1859. These specimens, which are in the British Museum, were at first incorrectly referred by Gray, in his article upon Petherick’s Mammals, to Cobus lechee, which, however, is quite a distinct species and never ranges nearly so far north.
Besides the Berlin and British Museums the only other collection that, so far as we know, contains a perfect example of this rare Antelope is the Royal Museum of Turin. Here, as Count Salvadori kindly informs us, there is a fully adult male example of Cobus leucotis mounted in the gallery, and standing about 35 inches high at the withers. This specimen was originally received alive from the Sudan, along with other animals, by King Victor Emmanuel, and on its death was presented to the Turin Museum.
Heuglin, in 1861, included this species in his list of the Antelopes and Buffaloes of North-east Africa, and gave a figure of its head, designating the Rivers Sobat and Bahr-el-Ghazal as its localities. It is probable that Heuglin’s “Adenota kul” and “A. wuil,” described as new in the same memoir, should also be referred to the present species; but as the descriptions are very meagre and, so far as we know, no specimens of these problematical species are extant, this must remain a matter of some uncertainty.
Since Heuglin’s time several other African explorers have met with this Antelope, but we are not aware that, with the exception of Sir Samuel Baker, they have brought home specimens. In the Appendix to ‘Ismailia,’ Sir Samuel placed the name of the present species in the list of animals met with in the Shooli country on the Upper Nile, and Sclater (who examined the specimens brought home by Baker) believes that there were some heads of this Antelope amongst them. Harnier’s description of an Antelope obtained in March 1861, during his voyage up the White Nile (Reise, p. 52, 1866), is apparently referable to Cobus leucotis. Dr. Schweinfurth, in ’Im Herzen von Afrika,’ mentions Antilope leucotis in several places, and in his first volume gives fairly accurate woodcuts of the heads of both sexes. On the lower flats of the rivers of the Niam-Niam country, Dr. Schweinfurth found this Antelope by far the commonest species in the dry season, being met with in large herds of from 100 to 300 individuals. During the rainy season, he tells us, it resorts to the higher forest-bushes and separates into small troops for pairing. He also mentions as a peculiarity of this elegant animal that when running away it springs up into the air after the manner of the South-African Spring-buck, and shows its white rump. The flesh of Antilope leucotis, he tells us, is one of the best for culinary purposes. The female he describes as being very like that of Cervicapra arundinacea, but recognizable at once by the black on the front limbs.
Emin, in his ‘Reise-briefen,’ refers in several passages to Antilope leucotis as met with on the Upper Nile. Dr. W. Junker, in his ‘Travels in Africa,’ records the capture of a “Kala Antelope, Antilope leucotis,” as far south as the Upper Welle (about 3° 30’ N. lat.), near Mount Madyanu, and gives a figure of it in his text. Looking to this and to what Dr. Schweinfurth has told us, we must assume that the present Antelope extends beyond the water-parting of the Nile and Congo down to the banks of the Welle.
December, 1896.
THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL. XXXIX.