ALLEN: MAMMALS FROM THE BLUE NILE VALLEY. 313 



point. At Bados we spent a day hunting the Roan, with a skih'ul 

 native tracker. The animals were well back from the river, and after 

 about an hour's walk we reached their country, and spent some hours 

 following tracks on the powdery "cotton soil" in the thorn scrub. 

 The tracks were mostly of single animals or pairs, and we found where 

 they had roamed about stopping here and there to bite off a green 

 twig of a particular species of thorn, white-barked and with small 

 obovate leaves. The Antelope were extremely shy and several broke 

 away before we had even sighted them. Finally Dr. Phillips success- 

 fidly stalked to within ninety yards of one lying apparently asleep 

 imder a 'laloab' tree, at noon. But the watchful animal was quick 

 to detect the motion of the binoculars, even at that distance and down 

 wind, and leaped to its feet, a fine imposing creature. When startled 

 at close range, the Roan as it Ijounds away makes a sound like a 

 " sneezing cough." 



On the Binder, there are many more than on the Blue Nile. For 

 some distance above the villages where the river bank is more or less 

 travelled by Arab gum pickers and hunters, the Roan are shy, and 

 their tracks, which we began to find at the camping spot. El Kuka, 

 usually led straight back into the thorn scrub, so that it was fully a 

 mile from the stream before the trails began to break up. Beyond 

 the junction of the Galegu we saw many Roan. They had e\idently 

 been little disturbed here and travelled in bands of as many as fifteen 

 to twenty-five, taking no apparent precaution to avoid the river 

 borders. Unlike the other antelopes, they seemed to avoid the open 

 ' meres ' but were usually in the scattered tree growth, or the edge of 

 the tall grass and bushes near the stream. They seemed to browse 

 rather than graze. At Abiad several came to water at a pool of the 

 Binder, in mid-afternoon, and it was interesting to see some drop to 

 their knees to drink, though others drank standing. 



Owing to its wariness and its habit of retiring far back from the 

 travelled river banks, this large species will no doubt continue to 

 survive along the Blue Xile for some time longer. Cotton (1912, 

 p. 53) believes that they drink only about twice a week, so are able to 

 go a long way from water. He says they are still common on the 

 Setit and the Atbara Rivers, in the uninhabited portions, but no 

 longer exist on the Rahad. 



The stomach of one contained in the first compartment over a 

 peck of the small twigs and leaves of a gray-barked thornl)ush, as well 

 as a number of 'laboab' fruits, whose large stones are evidently 

 masticated with the cud, instead of being regurgitated as with the 

 smaller gazelle. 



