224 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



Baldwin, who, as far as I know, has written any- 

 thing concerning the inyala from personal experi- 

 ence is the Hon. W. H. Drummond, who was 

 travelling and hunting in Zululand and Amatonga- 

 land from 1867 to 1872, and who subsequently 

 recorded his observations on the wild animals he 

 met with in those countries in a book entitled The 

 Large Game and Natural History of South and 

 South-East Africa, As his remarks concerning the 

 inyala are very much to the point, I think they are 

 well worth quoting. He writes concerning this 

 antelope as follows : — 



Perhaps the most beautiful of all the antelopes that I 

 have seen is the inyala, the white lines with which it is 

 striped being more numerous, more regular, and much 

 better defined than those of either the koodoo or the striped 

 eland, which, as far as I know, are the only two animals 

 which possess them at all. Unfortunately, it does not 

 exist except in the low, fever-stricken districts of the 

 Bombo range, about the 28th degree of south latitude. 

 It frequents the densest thickets it can find, and is wary 

 and difficult to stalk ; indeed, I should fancy that more 

 people have caught fever by hunting this antelope than 

 in the pursuit of any other animal in Africa, except per- 

 haps the elephant. Of course, as with most game, early 

 morning and evening are the best times during which to 

 look for it, and early dawn implies being wet through to 

 above the waist by the heavy dew and the subsequent 

 drying of one's things by the heat of the sun — a pretty 

 certain method of getting fever ; evening, on the other 

 hand, means not getting home till hours after dark, and 

 breathing during that period the fatal miasma, which, as 

 soon as the sun sets, begins to rise from all over the great 

 lagoons and dotted plains where this antelope is chiefly 

 found. Inyala-shooting and fever are all but synonymous ; 

 but to those who have already had the latter, and with whom 

 the mischief as regards constitution is already done, ample 



