The “Edmi” or Mountain Gazelle of Algeria, though it has often been confounded with the Dorcas, and has only been accurately known within the last few years, is without doubt an absolutely different species not only in structure, but in habits and mode of life. As Sir Victor Brooke has pointed out, it is easily distinguished from all its allies by its larger size, rough coat, dark colour, and long ears.
The first published information that we can certainly refer to this species is that of Frédéric Cuvier, who figured both sexes in his folio work on Mammals from specimens living in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, but called it only “le Kevel gris,” without giving it any scientific designation.
Some time in 1839 a living female example of this Antelope was presented to the Zoological Society of London by Mr. W. Willshire, one of their corresponding members, who had procured it at Mogador. After its death in May 1840, Mr. Ogilby, who was at that time Secretary of the Society, and was specially interested in the study of mammals, brought the specimen before the notice of the Zoological Society at one of their scientific meetings, and proposed to name the species “cuvieri” after M. Frédéric Cuvier. Ogilby stated that he had observed examples of the same Gazelle in the Paris Museum, and that M. Cuvier would have described it had he, Ogilby, not done so. There can be no question therefore of Ogilby’s animal being the same as Cuvier’s “Kevel gris,” and that Gazella cuvieri is the earliest certain name to adopt for it.
In 1849 Fraser published a figure of this species in his ‘Zoologia Typica,’ taken from Ogilby’s typical specimen, which is now in the British Museum. Although imported from Mogador there can be little doubt that this example was originally obtained from the chain of the neighbouring Atlas. The Gazelles observed in the Great Atlas in company with Wild Sheep (Ovis tragelaphus) by Mr. W. B. Harris, F.R.G.S., on his journey from Morocco to Tafilat in 1893, were no doubt Gazella cuvieri.
Passing on to Algeria we find that Loche appears to have referred to this Antelope under the name Gazella corinna, and that Canon Tristram and Lataste have called it Gazella kevella. We have already shown, however, that both these names are properly to be applied to the Dorcas Gazelle.
In 1890, Mr. Edward Buxton met with this Gazelle during a shooting excursion into the Atlas, of which he has given us a most interesting account in one of the chapters of his ‘Short Stalks.’ Mr. Buxton’s principal object of pursuit on that occasion was the Aroui or Barbary Sheep (Ovis tragelaphus), but he also had the good fortune to obtain a fine head of the Mountain Gazelle, which he exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological Society on March 31st of that year (see P. Z. S. 1890, p. 363).
Mr. Buxton tells us, in the course of the remarks he made on this occasion, that the Mountain Gazelle of Algeria is “about twice the size of the Gazelle of the plains (Gazella dorcas), and has straight instead of lyre-shaped horns. It lives on the same kind of steep ground as the Aroui, perhaps at a rather lower elevation. The fact that it is essentially a mountain animal is, I think, shown by its large callous knees, like those of a London cab-horse. The Aroui has the same. They are, I think, absent in Gazella dorcas. Another feature consists in the curious hollows or pouches on each side of the testicles.”
In his ‘Short Stalks’ Mr. Buxton gives us full particulars of his adventures in obtaining the much-coveted head of this animal above referred to, and illustrates them by a beautiful picture of a group of these Gazelles drawn and engraved after his instructions by Mr. G. E. Lodge.
In his field-notes on the Antelopes of Eastern Algeria, published in the Zoological Society’s ‘Proceedings’ for 1896, Mr. A. E. Pease speaks as follows of the present species:—
“This Gazelle is by no means so rare as is generally supposed, though it is difficult to secure, its quickness and facility for eluding observation being equal almost to that of the Larrowi (Ovis tragelaphus). There is hardly a mountain in the southern ranges of the Aures where they are unknown, and I have seen them on almost every mountain from far to the N.W. of Biskra to the Tunisian frontier at Negrine. I know that they are common on the Djebel Cherchar, and I have seen them as far north as the hills and woods of Melagon, near Chelia. I have seldom seen more than eight in a herd, and far more frequently they are met with singly and in pairs, or bands of three to five. While frequenting the same difficult ground as the Larrowi, it is more usual to find them in larger numbers on those mountains which are lower than the highest. I have seen them on the plateaux and plains among the mountains, and they frequently descend at night to feed on the barley in the valleys, as also does the Larrowi. The best male horns I have measure rather more than 36 cm. along the curve.”