a short mane. General colour of upper-parts bright yellowish or reddish-
orange, frequently very similar to that of the bush-pig from the same
regions ; long hairs on middle of neck and back and part of those on lower
margin of the ears black, as are the legs from above the knees and hocks
downwards, and the tuft at the tip of the tail ; on the upper border of
the ears the long hairs are pale yellow; and the interior of the ears, except
for a black patch near the lower border, is also yellowish. The pits on
the forehead of the skull are very small.
The history of the niare, as this dwarf red buffalo is called at the Gabun,
is somewhat curious. The type specimen is the frontlet and horns- of an old
male (fig. 2 1), formerly in the possession of the Royal Society of London,
but now preserved in the British Museum, where it a; the finest specimen
representing this,race. It was first described as long ago as the year 1686
by Grew in his Rarities at Gresham College, and was again described, and
also figured, by Pennant1 in 17 7 1. In 1785 Boddaert named it Bos nanus,
while Kerr in 1792 and Turton in 1806 gave it the title of B . pumilus. In
1852 Dr. Gray figured it as the young of the Cape buffalo ; and in 1863
Mj, Blyth, apparently unaware of the earlier names, redescribed and refigured
the same specimen as B. reclinis, of which it is also the type.
In 1873, and again in 1875, Sir V. Brooke revived the name pumilus,
and included under that title all the specimens described as planiceros and
brachyceros. Of the specimens referred to in these memoirs which may
be safely assigned to this race, are two skulls in the museum at Leyden
brought by Pel from Lower Guinea, which are stated to be very similar
to the type, so far as their horns are concerned. Two skulls from the
Lower Niger acquired by the British Museum from Dr. Baikie are likewise
referable to this form-—the one belonging to an adult cow, and the
1 Gray, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 4, vol. xii. p. 499 (1873); xiii. p. 258 (1874), considered that
B . pumilus of Pennant was founded on the dwarf ox of Belon from Morocco ; see Brooke, op. cit.
vol. xiii. p. 159*
other to an immature animal. An immature skull in the same museum
from the Gabun (91, 3, 36, 1) has horns very similar in shape to the type,
the tips almost meeting, but smaller and less rugose. The frontlets and
horns of a bull and cow from the Congo figured in Dr. Pechuel-Loesche s
memoir are almost identical with the type, although the interval between
their tips is greater ; and Messrs. Rowland Ward recently had a series
of specimens of horns of both sexes, probably from the Congo, exhibiting
the same form. In a quite young specimen from the Gabun, in the British
Museum, the horns are in the form o f straight upright spikes, Du Chaillu
describes the niare of the Gabun as having horns very similar to those of
the type specimen, although they are ill-represented in his figure. In the
type specimen the length of the horn along the outer curve is 2 1^ inches,
the basal circumference 1 2 J inches, and the interval between the tips of
the two 2 \ inches.
The British Museum possesses the mounted skin off an immature cow of
this buffalo shot by Major A. J. Arnold in the Niger territory ; two skins
have been described by Sir V. Brooke, and there are two others in the
Paiff Museum. Of the latter, the first is an adult cow from Sierra Leone
which was living in the Jardin des Plantes about the year 1844. Although
the hair has been almost entirely worn off, sufficient remains to show that
the general,- colour was yellowish-orange, with a black muzzle and legs.
The horns are broad and flat at the base, with the tips incurved, but not
forming a sudden bend. The second is an immature bull brought from
the Congo by M. Dybowski; the general colour is light yellowish-orange,
with the hinder part of the inner margin of the ears, the mane on the
neck and withers, the tail-tuft, and lower portion of the legs black. The
horns are small, and show no incurving at the tips, indicating immaturity.
Of the specimens referred to in Sir V. Brooke’s memoir of 1873, one
is a cow from Sierra Leone, formerly living in the Surrey Zoological
Gardens, and of which a sketch is preserved in the Library of the Zoological