WATERBUCKS AND REEDBUCKS 519 



species. No mention was made of the naked character of 

 the pasterns, or the short, bulging snout and wide nasal 

 bones so distinctive of the lechwi. Gray associated with 

 the lechwi the poku or Zambesi kob, an antelope of the 

 genus Adenota, while the Nile lechwi, which closely resembles 

 the true lechwi in the horn characters used by Gray, was 

 placed with the waterbucks. Later naturalists have not 

 recognized Gray's genera, but have lumped the lechwis and 

 kobs with the waterbucks in the genus Kobtis. Most recent 

 writers have adopted the arrangement of the species as 

 given by Sclater and Thomas in the " Book of Antelopes," 

 where the Zambesi lechwi is placed at the end of the line 

 and the Nile lechwi widely separated from it and associated 

 with the waterbucks under the subgenus Cobtis. 



The back of the pasterns and the border of the hoofs and 

 the false hoofs are hairless, the skin being thickened and 

 pad-like. The hoofs are long and slender. The tail is long, 

 the tufted tip reaching the hocks. The horns are long, sub- 

 lyrate in shape, and wide-spread. The snout is short and 

 bulging. The lechwi shows important differences from the 

 kobs and waterbucks in the short, wide nasal bones, the 

 prominent swelling of the supraorbital region, and the great 

 width of the basioccipital bone separating the tympanic 

 bullae. There are but two species: the Zambesi lechwi and 

 the Nile lechwi. 



The distribution is peculiar and discontinuous. The 

 Zambesi lechwi ranges from Lake Ngami northward as far 

 as Lake Mweru on the northern border of Rhodesia, while 

 the Nile lechwi is confined to a very limited tract on the 

 White Nile more than one thousand miles north of Lake 

 Mweru. 



Nile Lechwi 

 Onotragus megaceros 



Native Names: Dinka, abokk; Nuer, til. 



Adenota megaceros Fitzinger, 1855, Sitz. Ak., Wien, XVII, p. 247. 



Range. — Mouth of the Bahr el Ghazal at its junction 

 with the White Nile. Apparently confined to the district 

 near the mouth of the Bahr-el-Ghazal side and unknown 



