Horns of male thick, curved strongly backwards below, then hooked inwards and forwards above. Horns of female almost equally long, but comparatively thin, slightly curved, and not hooked terminally.
Hab. Dongola and Sennaar.
In concluding our account of the true Gazelles we come, at the end of the list, to a small but attractive group of three species which are closely related to one another, and take each other’s places as representatives in the different countries where they have been found. These three Antelopes are certainly nearly allied, and it is by no means improbable that, although all the accessible specimens known to us are distinguishable, intermediate forms will ultimately be found to link them together. It is especially likely that this will prove to be the case with the two western species, G. dama and G. mhorr. All the three species of this group are exceedingly rare in collections, and we have been able to obtain but very little information about them, and very little material for comparison, the British Museum being badly off for specimens of all of them. It is to be hoped, however, that the prospective opening of the Soudan, by France on one side and England on the other, will lead to an increase of our knowledge of this group of Antelopes, and of the many other interesting forms of the great North-African desert.
We will commence our account of these three Gazelles with the one which inhabits the eastern part of the Soudan, where our own countrymen may soon be expected to meet with it.
The first notice of the existence of a species of this form in North-eastern Africa appears to have been given by Lichtenstein, who read a paper on the Antelopes of Northern Africa before the Academy of Sciences of Berlin on March 11th, 1824. Amongst the four Antelopes discussed in this learned treatise, which was mainly based upon the specimens sent to the Royal Collections by the well-known travellers Hemprich and Ehrenberg from Dongola and Sennaar, were several representatives of the present species which Lichtenstein not unnaturally referred to the Antilope dama of Pallas. The same course was pursued by Hemprich and Ehrenberg themselves, who shortly afterwards published full descriptions and figures of it in their ‘Symbolæ Physicæ.’ They inform us that they met with specimens of this Antelope in Southern Dongola in the month of July 1822, and hunted it along with the Addax and Leucoryx, which occurred in the same district. They found it plentiful in herds and easy of access, even without the use of horses. Like the other species mentioned, it feeds principally on the acacias. They did not meet with this Antelope until they arrived at 20° N. lat. going south, after which they found it abundant. The Arabs, who much esteem the flesh and sell it when dried, call it “Addra.” It did not appear to approach the banks of the Nile, but kept entirely to the desert and to the valleys which traverse it, especially to the Chor-el-Lebben.
Not far from the same date another distinguished German traveller and naturalist, Rüppell, whose name we have already had frequent occasion to mention, also met with this Antelope. Rüppell sent his specimens to Frankfort-on-the-Main, where they were described and figured by Cretzschmar on the part of the Senckenbergian Society of Naturalists in 1826. Cretzschmar also referred these specimens to Antilope dama; but Hamilton Smith, after examining them in the Senckenbergian Museum, came to the correct conclusion that they belonged to a different species, on which he proposed to bestow the name Antilope ruficollis. We must therefore use Gazella ruficollis as the correct scientific designation of this animal. A third German naturalist, Heuglin, who has recorded his experiences of this species, tells us that he met with it, generally in pairs or small families, and often mixed up with herds of other Gazelles, in the desert districts of Dongola and Kordofan, where it is known to the Arabs as the “Adra” or “Ledra.” From this native name, Bennett, in his memoir on Gazella mhorr, to which we shall presently refer, proposed to call the present species Antilope addra, but, as has been already stated, Hamilton Smith’s name has precedence.
Gazella ruficollis is, we regret to say, represented in the British Museum by two specimens only, neither of which is suitable for exhibition in the Gallery. One of these is a stuffed female from Sennaar, received from the Stockholm Museum, in exchange, in 1846, and the other an imperfect skin of a male from Kordofan, purchased of a dealer in 1848.
We are not aware that this Gazelle has ever been brought to Europe alive.
Our figure (Plate LXXI.) has been drawn from the stuffed female in the British Museum.
September, 1898.