Leptoceros abuharab et L. cuvieri, Fitz. SB. Wien, lix. pt. 1, p. 160 (1869).
Gazella loderi, Thos. Ann. Mag. N. H. (6) xiii. p. 452 (1894) (Algeria); id. P. Z. S. 1894, p. 470, pl. xxxii. (animal); Loder, P. Z. S. 1894, p. 473 (habits); Scl. P. Z. S. 1895, p. 522 (Egypt); Bramley, P. Z. S. 1895, p. 863 (Egypt); Scl. P. Z. S. 1896, p. 780 (Viv. Soc. Zool.); Pease, P. Z. S. 1896, p. 813 (Algeria); Whitaker, P. Z. S. 1896, p. 816 (Tunis); Ward, Horn Meas. (2) p. 169 (1896).
Vernacular Names:—Abu el harabat or Abu el haráb in Arabic (Heuglin); Reem of Arabs in Algeria (Loder); Ghazal abiad (White Gazelle) of Arabs in Tunis and Egypt (Whitaker & Bramley).
Height of male at withers about 25 inches. General colour very pale sandy fawn, the Gazelline markings little defined. Central facial band and darker cheek-bands sandy, not rufous, and but little contrasting with the light facial streaks. Light lateral bands scarcely perceptible, and the darker ones below them only pale sandy with a tinge of brownish, as are the pygal bands, neither being much darker than the general dorsal colour. Ears long, narrow, pointed, pale whitish buff externally. Tail sandy at base, darkening terminally to brownish black. Front of fore limbs sandy, of hind limbs whitish; knee-brushes distinct, but little darker than the general colour. Hoofs variable in shape, those of specimens from the sandy regions of the Sahara much elongated, while in other regions they are of the usual shape.
Skull of normal proportions; premaxillæ broadly articulating with nasals. Basal length in an old male 6·45 inches, greatest breadth 3·3, muzzle to orbit 3·6.
Horns of male long, about twice the length of the skull, slender, closely and heavily ringed nearly to the tip. They are very variable as to their exact curvature, but are ordinarily rather straighter than in other species, curving but slightly backwards; they are near together basally, diverging above, sometimes very widely, so as to make them resemble divergent horns of G. granti in miniature.
Female. Similar to the male, but the horns, although nearly equally long, are much slenderer and even less curved than in the male.
Hab. Sandy tracts of the interior of Algeria, Tunisia, and Western Egypt, south to Nubia and Sennaar.
The great folio work of Geoffrey St.-Hilaire and Frédéric Cuvier entitled ‘Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères,’ which was issued in livraisons from 1824 to 1842, contains a long series of coloured figures of mammals, mostly taken from examples living in the well-known Menagerie attached to the Jardin des Plantes. Amongst these in the seventy-second livraison, published in 1842, were the first descriptions and figures given of both sexes of the present Gazelle, from examples stated to have been brought from Sennaar by Burton. They had lived in the Menagerie, we are told, two years, and had bred a young one, which resembled its parents in most particulars. The appropriate scientific name “leptoceros,” from the long thin horns, had been given to this species, we are informed, by Georges Cuvier, and was adopted by the authors of the work referred to, who, however, called it at the head of their article, after their usual fashion, only by the French name “Antilope à longues cornes.”
Very little more information was acquired concerning this Gazelle for many years. Most of the systematists were entirely unacquainted with it, and could only quote the original descriptions. Sundevall and Gray considered it to be merely a variety of Gazella dorcas. Rüppell, during his extensive travels in East Africa, seems never to have come across it, and does not mention it in any of his publications.