464 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1891. 



whole length of the throat. The head is prettily marked with 3 white 

 spots on each cheek (very like the spots on the cheeks of a bull nielgai ) , 

 and two white lines, one from the corner of each eye, meet on the 

 face. Mr. Selous says that the koodoo is marked with eight or 

 nine white stripes. In Harris's Wild Sports of Southern Africa, it is 

 described as having four or six lines on the side and four more 

 over the croup, and in the picture of one in the list of the 

 animals of the London Zoological Society (an uncommonly bad 

 likeness), it is shown as having nine white stripes down the side. 

 If these statements are correct, the Somali koodoo would appear to 

 have a less number of stripes than the koodoo in South Africa. 

 I shot two males, the largest of which is shown in the photograph, 

 on which the stripes can easily be counted. I saw a good 

 number of females at different times, but it was very difficult to 

 observe them, owing to the thick character of the bush they were found 

 in, but I am pretty sure that they did not have so many stripes 

 as eight or nine, though I am not prepared to say that none had 

 more than four. The females are of a yellowish-brown colour and are 

 hornless. The young males are of the same colour as the females, 

 but soon assume the grey colour. I saw one with small horns whose 

 fore-quarters were grey while his hind-quarters were brown. I 

 watched him for a long time on the bare side of a perpendicular hill, 

 as I was particularly struck with his peculiar colour. His horns did 

 not appear to be more than about a foot long. 



Koodoo shooting is hard work. Owing to the precipitous character 

 of the ravines in which they are found, and the denseness of the 

 thickets, it is quite impossible to see any distance down the hill on the 

 side you are stalking, and the only chance of a shot is when he bolts 

 up the opposite side of the ravine. They go in small herds of half a 

 dozen or less. The largest herd I saw was a dozen, of which eleven 

 were females. The horns of the one photographed measure almost 

 3 feet from base to tip in a straight line, which is as good, I believe, 

 as one can expect to get in Somali Land. Mr. Selous saj^s the 

 largest horns he ever saw measured were 3 ft. 8| inches. The koodoo 

 has no suborbital sinus. It feeds on both bushes and grass and 

 drinks regularly, so I don't think you would ever find it at any great 

 distance from water. Dr. Livingstone, however, mentions the koodoo 



