Horns of Gazella soemmerringi berberana, ♂ & ♀.
(From specimens in the British Museum.)
Examples of Gazella soemmerringi are recorded by Sundevall as being contained in the extensive collections received by the Stockholm Museum which were made by the Swedish traveller Hedenborg in Sennaar, but the exact localities are not specified.
So much is all we have to say about the smaller and typical form of this species originally discovered by Rüppell. But about the larger subspecies of Northern Somaliland, which has been named berberana by Herr Matschie, we are able to give greater details from information supplied by the many naturalists and sportsmen who have of late years visited the country which it inhabits. Although it does not appear that there is any discontinuity between the ranges of these two forms, and it is quite likely that intermediate specimens may occur where the two forms meet, we cannot but allow that Herr Matschie was justified in assigning a subspecific name to the Southern form. Not only is the latter a larger and finer animal with longer horns, but the curvature of its horns is, as we have already pointed out, so different that, so far as our experience goes, there can be no difficulty in distinguishing the two forms by this character alone.
Capt H. G. C. Swayne, R.E., in his ‘Seventeen Expeditions to Somaliland,’ writes thus of Gazella soemmerringi:—
“Five years ago, when I was staying in the quarters at Bulhár, the Aoul could be seen from the bungalow grazing out on the plain. The Bulhár Maritime Plain used to be full of them, but they have been so persecuted by sportsmen that they have now retired to some distance.
“The Aoul weighs about the same as the Gerenúk, but has a shorter neck and a more clumsy-looking head, and is altogether a coarser animal. It is a grass-feeder, and lives in the open plains or in scattered bush, and never in thick jungle, and prefers tolerably flat ground. The white hind-quarters can be seen from a great distance, making a herd of Aoul look like a flock of sheep in the haze of the plains. I have never seen them in the cedar-forests on the top of Gólis, but in the hartebeest-ground to the south they are common. They are often met with in large herds along with the hartebeests, and are very common all over the Haud and Ogádén and near the Webbe.
“They are, I think, the most stupid and easy to shoot of all the Somáli Antelopes, and their habits are identical with those of the Indian Blackbuck, but they are not equal to it in beauty and grace of movement. Aoul often make long and high jumps when going away, presumably to look over the backs of the others; they look something like specimens of the Cape Springbuck which I have seen in England. I have never observed them spring vertically to a great height, as the Indian Blackbuck does. They are inquisitive like the Hartebeests, and will follow a caravan in the open, and if fired at they make off across the front, stretching themselves out at racing speed, and drawing up in a troop now and then to gaze.”
Captain R. H. Light, of the Indian Staff Corps, who visited Somaliland in 1891, and has kindly furnished us with some field-notes on its Antelopes, writes that this Gazelle is found there in couples, and also in herds of fifty or more, and generally frequents plains with slight coverts. They are not usually difficult of approach, and out of a large herd he has shot four, one after the other, within a mile of ground, the herd moving off at every shot, but allowing him to approach again. At 150 yards distance or so Capt. Light says it is very hard to distinguish a buck from a doe of this Antelope, the size of the body being the same, and the slight differences in the thickness of the horns and neck being hardly perceptible. Their gait is longer and slower than that of Pelzeln’s Gazelle, but still not awkward like that of the “Gerenuk” (Lithocranius walleri).
Mr. F. Gillett, F.Z.S., who accompanied Dr. Donaldson Smith during the first portion of his journey to Lake Rudolph, and made other expeditions in Somaliland, has favoured us with the following notes on this species:—