. British Central Africa; an attempt to give some account of a portion of the territories under British influence north of the Zambezi. Natural history. ZOOLOGY 303 The buffalo of British Central Africa is the type known as the Cape Buffalo {Bos caffer). The range of this species probably extends from South Africa up the eastern half of the continent to the Victoria Nyanza, the White Nile, and Somaliland. Its place in Abyssinia and the Egyptian and Central Sudan is taken by another variety or species known as the Central African It extends into West Africa as far as the southern boun
. British Central Africa; an attempt to give some account of a portion of the territories under British influence north of the Zambezi. Natural history. ZOOLOGY 303 The buffalo of British Central Africa is the type known as the Cape Buffalo {Bos caffer). The range of this species probably extends from South Africa up the eastern half of the continent to the Victoria Nyanza, the White Nile, and Somaliland. Its place in Abyssinia and the Egyptian and Central Sudan is taken by another variety or species known as the Central African It extends into West Africa as far as the southern boundaries of the district of Angola proper and thence over the whole Zambezi region into the south and east of the Congo Free State, reaching more than half-way up the coast of Tanganyika and being found on the upper waters of the Lualaba and Kasai. Thenceforward to the north and west its place is taken by the curious short- horned red buffalo of West Africa, which is the only species found in the forest part of the Congo Basin and along the west coast and in Nigeria. It may be interesting to give here a drawing of the horns of this forest buffalo of the Congo, which I did at Bolobo on the Upper Congo some years ago. On the whole I am disposed to regard the forest buffalo of West Africa as rather a degenerate than a primitive type of buffalo. It is evidently a deteriorated race of the Bos caffer? Buffaloes are very abundant all over British Central Africa, but of course are retiring from the vicinity of European settle- ments. They are also frequenters of the plain rather than the mountains, though they will ascend high plateaux in the dry season for the sake of the green herbage. The favourite places of their resort are wide marshy districts like the Elephant Marsh near Chiromo, where even after the most wanton and indiscriminate slaughter at the hands of Europeans3 they exist in large numbers—thousands, it is said. Like the Indian buffalo they are fond of wallowing in mud and
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky