Gazella lævipes, Brooke, P. Z. S. 1873, p. 541 (nec Sund.).
Vernacular Name:—Tel-badu in Tigré (Heuglin).
Height at withers about 27 inches. General colour deep sandy. Central facial band but little more rufous than the back; no black patch on muzzle. Light facial streak scarcely or not perceptible on sides of muzzle; the area round the eye dull whitish, not sharply defined. Back of ears scarcely lighter than nape. Light lateral band present, not strongly defined. Dark lateral band black, strongly marked, though narrower than in G. thomsoni; a sandy line present between it and the white of the belly. No dark pygal band. Tail sandy at base, the remainder black. Knee-brushes present, dark sandy.
Horns not, or little, longer than the head, lyrate, parallel at base, curving outwards above and then abruptly twisted inwards towards each other at the tip, the ends each forming a sharp hook, similar to that found in G. soemmerringi, but even more strongly bent inwards.
Hab. Bogosland, North-east Africa.
Fig. 71. Fig. 72.
Heads of Heuglin’s Gazelle, ♂ & ♀.
(From specimens in B. M.)
What little we know of this Gazelle is chiefly due to the researches of the late Baron Theodor von Heuglin, an energetic collector and observer of the Mammals and Birds of North-eastern Africa, whose name we have already had frequent occasion to mention in the pages of this work. In the absence of any better designation, we have selected “Heuglin’s Gazelle” as its English name, which is so far applicable that, besides being its first describer, Heuglin is the only naturalist that has recorded observations on it as met with in its native wilds. Heuglin passed several months in the fertile territory of Bogos, north of Abyssinia (now, we believe, included in the Italian colony of “Eritrea”), when attached to the German expedition sent out in search of the much-lamented traveller Dr. Eduard Vogel. He thoroughly explored this country, which is traversed by the River Anseba, and discovered many new birds and mammals, which were subsequently described in his various works. Amongst the mammals was the present species of Gazelle, which he met with only “on the bushy plains round Ain-Saba from 3000 to 5000 feet above the sea-level, in small families of from three to six individuals.” In his original description Heuglin called this Gazelle Antilope melanura, but subsequently altered its specific name to “tilonura,” there having been already an Antilope melanura of Bechstein, which term is, however, a useless synonym of the Oribi (Ourebia scoparia). We have not been able to discover what the term “tilonura” means, but follow the change, which has been adopted by Sir Victor Brooke and other authors.