134 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



are chestnut, the black gradually appearing with 

 age. An instructive exhibit of a sable some 

 few months old is mounted in the Artis Museum 

 at Amsterdam : the horns are but half grown, 

 and the corresponding darkening of the coat 

 normal at this stage is seen saturating the 

 lighter coat of youth At 14 days the horns are 

 apparent as rounded thimble-like projections : they 

 take several years to grow, the fully adult animal 

 having a distinct space between the lowest annula- 

 tion and the true base of the horn. The horns of 

 old bulls are more curved than those of cows and 

 immature animals. Average length of sable horns 

 40 inches ; maximum recorded length 49 inches 

 (see Proc. Zool. Soc). 



Distributed throughout South Eastern Africa, north 

 of Swaziland and Delagoa Bay, and especially 

 abundant in Mashonaland, the sable antelope occurs 

 in troops of from ten to thirty individuals, large 

 herds seventy or eighty strong being occasionally 

 encountered. These animals are said to frequent 

 open forest and also well-watered valleys at the foot 

 of rocky, wooded hills. The cows act as sentinels, 

 giving the alarm by a coughing snort; thus signalling 

 to all the herd to stand at gaze with outstretched 

 necks, a group of ebony statues. According" to the 

 French naturalist Delegorgue, the sable feeds chiefly 

 at night, up to 9 or 10 p.m. He supposed that in 

 this way its prominent black coat escaped recog- 



