Fig. 48.
Front view of head of Angolan Pallah.
(P. Z. S. 1890, p. 460.)
In 1889 Capt. F. Cookson, during a sporting excursion into Hasholand or Kaokoland, in the neighbourhood of the Cunene River met with some twenty or more specimens of this Antelope, and brought back a single head to England. This head, mounted by Mr. Rowland Ward, was exhibited by Sclater at a meeting of the Zoological Society on June 17th, 1890, as an example of Æpyceros petersi. The notice of Sclater’s exhibition published in the Zoological Society’s ‘Proceedings’ was accompanied by an illustration, which, by the kindness of the Council of the Zoological Society, we are enabled to reproduce (fig. 48). The dimensions of these horns are given by Mr. Rowland Ward, in his ‘Records of Big Game’ (1896), as 18¾ inches in a straight line and 22¾ on front curve, and the distance between the tips as 12¼ inches.
So far as we know, this is all the evidence to be offered as to the existence of this species, concerning which further particulars would be very desirable. There is no example of it in the British Museum.
August, 1897.
Genus III. SAIGA.
| Type. | |
| Saiga, Gray, List Mamm. B. M. p. xxvi (1843) | S. tatarica |
| Colus, Wagner, Schreber’s Säugeth. Suppl. iv. p. 419 (1844) | S. tatarica |
Size medium. Nose large, elongate, bent downwards, and inflated; the nostrils opening downwards. Tail short. Mammæ 4. Accessory hoofs present.
Skull with short nasals and premaxillaries, and an exceedingly large and high nasal opening; small supraorbital pits; no lachrymal vacuities; anteorbital fossæ shallow. Lower premolars two, at least in the recent species.