132 Field Columbian Museum — Zoology, Vol. i. 



Strepsiceros Kudu (Gray). 



Strepsiceros Kudu. Big Koodoo. Native name Gcdir. 



a. $ ad. Golis Range near Jerato Pass. 



b. $ ad. Hullier. 



c. $ juv. Hullier. 



d. 9 ad. Hullier. 



This is a mountain species, delighting in the lofty ranges amid 

 steep declivities, ravines, and broken ground, and occasionally 

 going on to the plains, and when it does do so it is probably 

 merely to reach some other range of lofty hills lying beyond. 

 The Big Koodoo is a magnificent animal, one of the largest of 

 known species of antelope, possessed of a powerful frame, beauti- 

 ful coloring, and the male carries a magnificent pair of long 

 spiral horns. The female is hornless. It keeps near water, 

 unlike in this respect so many African antelopes, and is very shy 

 and retiring, remaining in the most inaccessible parts of the hills 

 it can find, and starting off at the slightest sign of danger or sight 

 of a suspicious object. The easy way in which a bull Koodoo 

 can travel over the rocky ground, scaling apparently inaccessible 

 cliffs, and going at speed over the roughest places broken up into 

 defiles and thickly strewn with bowlders and broken stones, is 

 wonderful to witness; but the animal goes clattering along, mak- 

 ing a prodigious noise the while, with as much ease as a horse 

 would travel on a good road. Koodoo are cunning, and their 

 eyes, nose, and ears serve them equally well, but the very style 

 of ground they inhabit, and which serves as a refuge, is one 

 of the means of their destruction, for it is easy to stalk them 

 when the hunter has innumerable objects at hand by means of 

 which he can veil his approach and gain a position near the 

 unsuspecting quarry, from which a deadl}'^ shot can be taken. 

 Koodoo go in small herds, usually consisting of an old bull and 

 two or three cows, with their calves if there are any. Occasion- 

 ally a young bull may be of the party, but if that is the case he 

 is usually too young to excite any jealousy in the lord of the 

 family. The cows are the most watchful, and are always on the 

 lookout to perceive approaching danger, and the bull trusts 

 almost entirely to them to give him timely warning. The note or 

 call of the female when she is startled is a kind of bark, which, 

 when heard, puts all the members of a herd on the qui vive. 

 This and the succeeding species never associate together, for 

 although the Big Koodoo may go down on the plains stretching 

 away from the base of the mountains, his small relative never 



