Tragelaphus scriptus roualeynei, Thos. P. Z. S. 1891, p. 389, 1893, p. 504; True, P. U. S. N. Mus. 1892, p. 471; Scl. P. Z. S. 1893, pp. 507, 728; Thos. P. Z. S. 1896, p. 798; Rendall, Novitat. Zool. v. p. 211 (1898); Trouess. Cat. Mamm. p. 959 (1899).
Tragelaphus sylvaticus roualeynei, Jacks. Badm. Big Game Shooting, pp. 285, 306 (1894); id. in Ward’s Great and Small Game of Africa, p. 481, pl. xiii. fig. (1899).
Subspecies b. Tragelaphus roualeyni fasciatus.
Tragelaphus decula, Swayne, P. Z. S. 1894, p. 317; id. Somaliland, p. 309; Ghika, Au Pays des Somalis, p. 184 (1898); Straker, in Ward’s Great and Small Game of Africa, p. 478 (1899).
Tragelaphus scriptus fasciatus, Pocock, Ann. & Mag. N. H., Jan. 1900.
Vernacular Names:—Serolomootlooque of the Bakalahari on the Limpopo (Cumming); Babala of the Anyanga, Mbawala of the Agawa, Imbabala of the Angoni, and Mpatu of the Ahenga, and Anyika in British Central Africa (Crawshay); Mpongo in Kinyamwesi (Böhm); Mbawara, Mbala, or Mbawala in Kisuaheli; Dol of Somalis (Swayne).
The typical form of this species is very nearly allied to the Bushbuck of the Cape Colony (T. sylvaticus), but is more strongly marked with white. Colour variable. Adult bucks sometimes nearly black or brownish grey, without traces of stripes and spots; sometimes marked with a few faint stripes and a few spots.
Females and immature males are redder in colour than adult bucks, and generally weakly striped and spotted.
Hab. From the Limpopo River across the Lower Zambesi to Nyasaland, and thence northwards to British East Africa and Somaliland.
The great sportsman Roualeyn Gordon Cumming was the first observer of this East-African form of the Bushbuck, and with characteristic audacity named it after himself. He seems to have first met with it on the Limpopo in June 1847, and in his ‘Hunter’s Life’ has given us the following account of his discovery:—