II KOODOOS AND BUSHBUCKS 31 



lopes, which are all forests dwellers (with the exception 

 of the situtunga, which lives in dense beds of reeds), 

 may not be useful to them by enabling the males 

 and females to hear one another's calls during the 

 mating season. The large ears and exquisite 

 sense of hearing of the moose, which is also a forest- 

 dwelling animal, have undoubtedly been developed 

 for the purpose of enabling the males and females 

 to find one another in the breeding season, and 

 not for protection against the attacks of wolves. I 

 have frequently heard both koodoos and bushbucks 

 calling by night and also in the early morning. 

 The noise they make is a sort of bark or cough. 



Antelopes inhabiting open plains are very 

 gregarious, and in the daytime would always be 

 able to find their mates by sight. I have never 

 heard them making anything but low grunting 

 noises. As it is often assumed by naturalists that 

 all bush-haunting species of antelopes have very 

 large ears, it is perhaps worth noticing that in the 

 little blue buck and the red bush duiker of South- 

 East Africa, which both live in dense jungle near 

 the coast, the ears are very small ; whilst in the 

 steinbuck, on the other hand, which is always found 

 in very open country and never in thick bush, the 

 ears are very large — both long and broad. 



The coloration observable in the different races of 

 bushbucks inhabiting different localities, as well as 

 in the situtunga and inyala antelopes, is, I think, 

 very interesting and suggestive. It may, I think, 

 be taken for granted that all the races of African 

 bushbucks have been derived from an ancestral 

 form which was both striped and spotted ; but in 

 the bushbucks found near the coast of the Cape 

 Colony and Natal, the adult males are deep dark 

 brown in colour, often absolutely devoid of any 

 white spots or stripes on face or body, whilst the 

 adult females are yellowish red, with only a few 



