THE LARGER EAST AFRICAN ANTELOPES 



On this improvised flute they sometimes play for hours 

 two or three notes, which, with the dull sound of the native 

 drum for an accompaniment, constitutes the only *' music " 

 to the much-liked *' ngoma," or native dance. 



Of all antelopes, none is more curious looking and 

 strangely behaving than the wildebeest, or gnu, as it is 

 often called. There are a number of very closely allied 

 species of the wildebeest, distributed from the northern 

 parts of the Cape Colony up to Uganda and British East 

 Africa. In the southern part of the latter protectorate 

 the white-bearded gnu is one of the commonest game ani- 

 mals, sometimes seen even from the Uganda Railroad in 

 herds of hundreds at a time. Mr. Selous describes the 

 beast very characteristically in a few words when he says : 

 " It appears to have the head of a bufifalo, the tail of a 

 horse, and the limbs and hoofs of an antelope." 



The gnu has a short and broad head, and a very wide 

 muzzle, fringed with coarse bristles of considerable length. 

 The nostrils are large and very far apart, and the neck 

 carries a stiff, erect mane, and is also covered with hair on 

 the under side. The wildebeest's tail is unusually long 

 and bushy, and is, both by settlers and natives, used as a 

 fly switch and duster. The head looks in the distance 

 just like that of a bufifalo, the horns having nearly the same 

 shape as those of the latter. They first curve somewhat 

 downward and outward, afterwards bending the tips in- 

 ward in a graceful sweep. The inner bony core of the 

 gnu's horn is not solid, like those of most antelopes, but 

 porous and honeycombed, like the horns of oxen and 

 sheep. Both sexes carry horns, those of the males being 

 much thicker and more rugged than the horns of the fe- 



167 



