458 SQURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1891. 



There were three animals I did not shoot, viz., the elephant 

 (SomaE " Marode"), the panther (Somali " Sheybelli"), and the harte- 

 brest (Somali "Sik"). In the Ogadeen, further inland, the Somalia 

 told me there were rhinoceros (Somali "Wheal"), and giraffe (Somali 

 "Gbra"). 



The above list looks rather imposing, but with the exception of 

 lion, Gaze/la naso, and dik-dik, the largest number of any one 

 animal I shot was three, and of some I shot only one specimen. 



I shot no does except of Gazella naso. All the antelopes and 

 gazelle were remarkably wild, and it was necessary to take much 

 longer shots than one has to in India. I may mention that for about 

 30 or 40 miles after leaving the coast at Berbera, one crosses a desert 

 in parts flat, thinly covered with mimosa bush, and in parts rugged 

 sandstone hills almost devoid of vegetation. Here and there a wady 

 or river bed, for the most part waterless, affords along its bank for 

 100 yards on either side thick cover of thorny bush. In this tract the 

 three gazelles, the wild ass, the lesser koodoo, the dik-dik, wart hog, 

 the two hyaenas and an occasional lion will be found, the last named 

 in the thick bush by the wadys. After about 30 or 40 miles you 

 come to a range of mountains running east and west called the Golis, 

 which are said at the highest point to be nearly 6,000 feet high. 

 However, when you are at the foot of them, you have nothing like this 

 to climb, as on your way from the coast you have, without knowing it> 

 been gradually ascending the whole way. These hills are very stony 

 and steep, and covered with thick bush, chiefly of a thorny descrip- 

 tion. They are broken up with deep ravines. In the hills are lion, 

 koodoo, klipspringer, wart hog, the ubiquitous hyaenas, and dik-dik. 

 Elephants also inhabit this range of mountains. The northern side of 

 the hills which you first reach is very precipitous. When you get 

 over them, the southern slope is a comparatively easy descent, and 

 when you are free of the hills you are on an extensive sandy plateau 

 said to be 2,000 or 3,000 feet above sea level. It is capital ground 

 for tracking. Here grows the umbrella mimosa, the branches at the 

 root being about 3 or 4 feet in diameter, spring out at an angle 

 from the ground, and at a height of 8 or 10 feet the top forms a level table 

 20 or more feet across, almost as smooth as if it had been trimmed by a 

 gardener. Dense clumps of thorny bush with long grass 12 or 1& 



