THE ADDAX ANTELOPE 121 



bundles of branches torn from the desert scrub. A 

 few Saharan larks, long-billed and grey-coated, may 

 be seen ; one or two stray crows or a stray scorpion 

 but add to the sense of dismal desolation. Richard- 

 son, who travelled in the dune country in 1845, 

 mentions seeing a white butterfly between Ghadames 

 and Ghat ; a most incongruous object, one would 

 think, in that nightmare wilderness of sand.^ 



In these remote regions the addax not only lives, 

 but like the gemsbok of the Kalahari keeps in high 

 condition in a practically waterless country. The 

 food supply does not err by its abundance : stunted 

 shrubs like the sheep bush which supports the 

 Karroo springbok, and dwarf acacias (in the more 

 sheltered valleys where the pebbly shingle retains 

 the moisture) offer a plain and scanty fare. As for 

 actual water, the streams of the Sahara are but 

 scanty at best, and no rain may fall for several years. 

 When a shower does occur, it causes a transient 

 vegetation to appear on the sand hills ; the addax 

 follow the rains in small herds. Often even the 

 desert lakes are completely dried up in hot seasons, 

 presenting but an enormous surface of brackish earth. 



A point requiring elucidation (hereby com- 

 mended to the notice of naturalists) is whether the 

 addax, like most if not all antelopes, resorts to the 

 desert brack-pans to lick the salt. These "chotts" 



1 Tlie writer Avas most interested wlien travelling,' in the Sahara to 

 the nortli of the Erj;' country to ol)serve how the little black and white 

 l)ird.s (desert chats) seemed (jnite at home in the bnrninj,' wilderness. 



