Although it is not so stated by Brooke (who was presumably ignorant of the fact), Mr. Waller’s specimens of this Antelope are now known to have been given to him by Sir John Kirk, at that time H.B.M. Consul at Zanzibar. In reply to enquiries Sir John kindly informs us that these skulls were procured by hunters in his employment on the coast near the River Juba in Southern Somaliland. Sir John subsequently shot specimens of it himself in the same district (where at that period it was very common), and also brought living examples of it away to Zanzibar.
In his description Brooke pointed out that, as is well shown in the accompanying figure (p. 231), which has been copied from the plate that illustrates his paper, the skull of this Gazelle, besides its general depression, stands widely apart from those of all other species of the group in the enormous backward prolongation of the occiput—“an extension gained principally by the great size of the occipital bone and the prominence of the occipital crest.” This divergence was so remarkable that Brooke doubted “whether the species should not constitute the type of a new subgenus.” As we shall see later, Brooke’s views have been fully justified by what has taken place since a close acquaintance with the structure of this singular Antelope has been acquired.
Fig. 85.
Skull of the Gerenuk.
(From Brooke, P. Z. S. 1878, pl. lvi.)
It was six years after the publication of Brooke’s paper before any additional information concerning this strange Antelope was obtained. In November 1884 Sclater brought before the notice of the Zoological Society a series of flat skins of Mammals, prepared by the natives of Somaliland, which had been lent to him for examination by Mr. C. Hagenbeck, of Hamburg. Amongst these were two skins, at first believed to belong to a new Gazelle, but which, after much research and mainly by the aid of a mounted head obtained in Somaliland by the late Mr. F. L. James, he was enabled to prove must belong to the same Antelope on the skull of which Gazella walleri had been founded. The skins were at once distinguishable by the well-defined dark brown dorsal stripe which, as we now know, forms such a noticeable feature in the present species. Further evidence of the identity of the Somaliland Antelope with Gazella walleri was obtained by the comparison of Mr. James’s specimen with one of the typical skulls of the last-named species. They differed little, except in the slightly larger size of the northern specimen and in some other minor characters. It was thus first shown that the range of Waller’s Gazelle extends to Northern Somaliland, but we now know that the “Gerenuk,” as the Somalis call it, is one of the most abundant game-animals of that favoured land.
Fig. 86.
Sketch of Gerenuk, ♂ and ♀, in characteristic attitudes.