‘Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères,’ from specimens living in the Jardin des Plantes. In 1845, as we learn from Gray, the Nilgai bred in the Knowsley Menagerie, and there was at that time a herd of a male and four females kept in one of the paddocks along with the Elands. In 1847 the half-grown male and young were drawn from some of these specimens by Waterhouse Hawkins, and the figures were published in the twenty-ninth plate of the ‘Gleanings.’ The Nilgai has been an inhabitant of the Zoological Society’s Menagerie from its commencement. In 1830 it was described and figured in the first of the two volumes on the ‘Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological Society’ by Vigors and Bennett, and in February 1831, as recorded in the ‘Proceedings,’ a specimen of a young one, born at the Society’s farm at Kingston, was exhibited and described at one of the Scientific Meetings. This appears to have been the first instance of its breeding in the Society’s Gardens, but since that date many other examples have been received, and the species has frequently bred in the Menagerie. On referring to the Society’s registers we find that this has taken place in 1856, 1864, 1866, 1868, and 1869. As a general rule, two young ones are produced at the same birth; but the young animals, although they thrive well, are excessively shy and timid, as is also the case with many others of the Deer and Antelopes, so that, if frightened, they frequently injure themselves by rushing against the fences of their paddocks.
Our coloured illustration of the Nilgai (Plate LXXXVII.) has been prepared from specimens of both sexes of this animal now living in the Zoological Society’s Gardens, where they were received in exchange on October 14th, 1896.
There is a good mounted example of the male Nilgai in the British Museum, obtained from the Zoological Society’s Gardens in 1896, besides two other older mounted specimens kept in store. There are also specimens of heads of this animal from the Khalcote jungle south of Mhow, presented by Col. J. Evans, and from Jullunder near Sangor, presented by Mr. G. A. Carmichael, and some skulls and horns from Oude and the North-west Provinces, presented by Mr. A. O. Hume, C.B. From the last of these the drawings of the skull and horns and frontlet of an adult male (figs. 98 and 99) have been prepared.
November, 1899.
Genus II. TRAGELAPHUS.
| Type. | |
| Tragelaphus, De Blainv. Bull. Soc. Philom. 1816, p. 75 | T. sylvaticus. |
| Euryceros, Gray, Cat. Rum. B. M. p. 47 (1872) | T. eurycerus. |
Large or medium-sized Antelopes, with the facial, neck, body, and leg markings characteristic of the subfamily usually well expressed.
Hind-quarters as high as or higher than the withers; fore limbs not longer than hind limbs. Hoofs of normal form, their length along the anterior border about equal to the basal width from back to front; posterior surface of the pasterns covered with hair. Ears large and expanded.
Horns present only in the male; of medium length or long, always longer than the face; flat at the base behind; with a strong external basal ridge arising just behind the orbit and forming an obtuse angle with the plane of the nasals; spirally twisted, the twist affecting the whole horn with the exception of its extreme tip, but shallow and not taking the form of an open corkscrew spiral; the anterior ridge, which starts in front of the middle of the base of the horn, only reappearing once close to the tip.
Skull much less flat than in Boselaphus, the parietal region more depressed. Molar teeth with short crowns; those of the upper jaw with only a small accessory column.