610 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



habitat would suggest its origin in the Somaliland region 

 and its extension later southward into British and German 

 East Africa. 



Gerenuk 

 Lithocranius walleri 



Native Names: Somali, gerenuk; Rendile, tange. 



Gazella walleri Brooke, 1878, Proc. Zool. Soc, p. 929, pi, LVI. 



Range. — From Somaliland and southern Abyssinia south- 

 ward throughout the coast and Lake Rudolf drainage area 

 to the Kilimanjaro district and the Rift Valley of German 

 East Africa as far south as the mouth of the Pangani River. 



The gerenuk was first described by Sir Victor Brooke 

 from specimens received from Waller, supposedly from the 

 Kilimanjaro region. Sclater and Thomas, however, in the 

 " Book of Antelopes," refer the origin of these specimens to 

 the coast district near the mouth of the Juba River, on infor- 

 mation received from Sir John Kirk, from whom Waller is 

 alleged to have obtained the specimens sent to Brooke. 

 The species is of rare or local occurrence in the Kilimanjaro 

 region and has been obtained by very few sportsmen in 

 that district. North of the Tana River, however, and 

 throughout Somaliland it is universally distributed and is 

 well known to every traveller who has visited these regions. 

 It is doubtless from this latter region that the specimens 

 described by Brooke were obtained. Herr Oscar Neumann, 

 in 1899, described the gerenuk of Somaliland as a new race, 

 giving as characters larger body size, paler color, lighter- 

 colored knee-brushes, and less extent to the white area on 

 the back of the hind quarters. Specimens from the North- 

 ern Guaso Nyiro district in the National Museum are fully 

 as large as the dimensions of Somaliland specimens and 

 resemble them closely in color and extent of the white on 

 the hind quarters. The color of the knee-brushes in these 

 specimens varies from light brown to seal-brown or black. 

 We doubt very much If the Somali gerenuk can be distin- 

 guished from specimens from British East Africa. 



This queer, long-legged, long-necked antelope, called by 

 the Swahilis ** little camel," was common in the dry, thorn- 



