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Lake Ngami

Note 86 — Chapter XXXIV

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Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, to whom I submitted an imperfect skin and a sketch of the head of the nakong, is unable to determine its exact nature, but seems inclined to consider it identical with the tragelaphus eurycerus—the broad-horned antelope—of which specimens of horns and heads have been brought from the Bight of Biafra, on the west coast of Africa. In the “Proceedings of the Zoological Society,” No. 250, p. 47, the following details appear:

“Head, pale brown. Broad band before the eyes, and two large spots on cheeks; chin and front of upper lip white. Horns elongate, thick, scarcely bent forward at the tip. Throat with long black hairs.”

Again, from a head in Mr. Warwick’s collection:

“The horns are very similar to those of t. angasii, but the head is considerably larger, nearly as large as that of the koodoo, and the horns are thicker and larger; they are twenty-seven inches long in a straight line from base to tip, and nine inches in circumference at the base. The hair of the head is also paler and more uniformly colored, and with very large white spots on the cheek, much larger than those of the koodoo or of t. angasii. The throat has a distinct mane of blackish rigid hairs. The muffle is very like that of t. angasii, and larger than that of the koodoo. The skull is imperfect; it has no appearance of any suborbital pit or slit.”

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