In 1827 Geoffroy St.-Hilaire and F. Cuvier published a description of this Antelope in their great work upon Mammals from a male specimen living in the Jardin des Plantes, received from the then Pasha of Egypt. Figures are given of this animal (pls. 388, 389) in both its summer and winter dress, and it is pointed out that in the latter it is the Antilope suturosa of Otto.
The Zoological Society of London appear to have first received living examples of the Addax in 1849. In 1861 a fine male was presented to the Society by Sir John Gaspard Le Marchant, then Governor of Malta. In 1864 one was obtained by purchase, and in 1876 another. At the present time there are no examples of the Addax in the London Gardens, but last summer there was, as already stated, a fine pair in the Jardin Zoologique of Antwerp.
Our illustration of this animal (Plate LXXXVI.) was put upon the stone by Mr. Smit, some twenty years ago, from a water-colour sketch made for Sir Victor Brooke by Mr. Wolf. It represents an adult animal in summer pelage.
The British Museum contains a fine adult mounted male of this Antelope, from the Tunisian Sahara, lately presented by Mr. J. I. S. Whitaker; a front and horns from the Algerian Sahara, presented by Mr. Rowland Ward, F.Z.S.; a pair of horns brought home from Central Africa by Denham and Clapperton; and the specimen, formerly in Bullock’s Museum, upon which de Blainville partly based his Antilope naso-maculata, and Hamilton Smith his A. mytilopes; besides other older specimens without exact localities.
May, 1899.
Subfamily VII. TRAGELAPHINÆ.
General and Colour Characters.—Medium-sized or large bovine Antelopes, typically, but not invariably, marked with transverse white stripes on the body, a pair of white spots on the cheeks, a white stripe running inwards and downwards from the corner of the eye to form an incomplete
-shaped mark on the upper half of the nose, a large transverse white patch at the upper and another at the lower extremity of the throat, and a pair of white spots on the front of the pasterns, which are black or brown behind. The belly is never white, and often darker than the sides of the body. The typical colour, as exemplified in the females and young males, is tawny, fawn, or reddish brown; but the adult males often assume a deep brown or slaty hue, and differ strikingly from the females.
Horns generally present only in the male; arising just behind the orbit; usually spirally twisted, and always furnished at the base in front with a longitudinal ridge, which generally curves outwards from the base of the horn.