xxii PREFACE 



form is considered no map has been prepared showing the 

 ranges of such species and races. 



The sportsmen who have shot and written about East 

 African game animals have come largely from temperate 

 Europe or North America, and have to a considerable 

 degree looked upon the African game animals in the light 

 of their knowledge of northern species. In this way they 

 have often come to regard differences in coloration between 

 individuals of the same species as seasonal affairs, one coat 

 being attributed to the summer season and another to the 

 winter. As a matter of fact, however, the mammals of 

 equatorial Africa have no definite season for shedding their 

 coats nor are they subject to any seasonal climatic change 

 which would necessitate such a change. The climate over 

 the greater part of the highlands is uniform or so irregular 

 that no definite seasons can be said to prevail. On the 

 coast and in the lower desert districts flanking the coast 

 a more definite climatic division into dry and rainy season 

 exists, but the rainy seasons are usually two annually, and 

 so short that a mammal cannot adjust its pelage to the 

 change. In some species there is a great individual varia- 

 tion in coloration, as in the case of the male white-eared 

 kob and Nile lechwi, in which a large per cent of the indi- 

 viduals become black in adult life, but such changes are 

 never seasonal. Similarly erroneous ideas regarding a def- 

 inite breeding season in East Africa for large mammals 

 are quite prevalent among sportsmen, but there is no 

 climatic necessity for such a habit. Young of almost all 

 ages can be seen at the same season throughout the high- 

 lands, but there does seem to be in some species a certain 

 time when the young are born in greater numbers. In 



