490 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



Waterbucks 



Kobus 



Kobus A. Smith, 1840, Illus. Zoology S. Africa, pt. VII, pi. XXVI; type 

 K. ellipsiprymnus. 



The waterbucks form a well-marked genus of large- 

 sized antelopes having long, heavily ringed horns sweeping 

 backward, with a slight forward curve at the extreme tips. 

 The withers are low and the body is covered by a coat of 

 long, coarse hair. In size and carriage they resemble the 

 European stag or the American elk, but in habits they 

 are more permanently gregarious and less forest-haunting. 

 They are approached closely in size within the subfamily 

 only by the lechwis from which they are at once distin- 

 guishable by the difference in horn shape, and the well- 

 haired nature of the feet, the back of the pasterns being 

 hairy. Waterbuck have a peculiar odor due to a glandular 

 excretion from the skin. The skull is distinguishable by 

 the flatness or depressed condition of the interorbital area, 

 the large, hypsodont teeth, and the large sinuses in front 

 of the orbit between the nasal bones and the lachrymal. 

 Several fossil species are known from the Pliocene of India, 

 China, and Algeria. The genus to-day occurs only in 

 Ethiopia, or Africa south of the Sahara. It is found from 

 Senegal and the Abyssinian highlands south throughout the 

 whole continent as far as the Limpopo River, but is un- 

 known in the Cape Colony proper. Two closely allied 

 species, separable only by coloration differences, are com- 

 prised in the genus. 



Key to the Species of Kobus 



Posterior surface of hind quarters white, in sharp contrast to the dark 

 coat; tail tuft and legs from knee and hocks blackish seal- 

 brown; coat often suffused with reddish; body size larger 



defassa 



Posterior surface of hind quarters marked on sides of rump by a wide, 

 white, elliptical-shaped stripe, connected below with the 

 white of the posterior surface of hind quarters but meeting 



