30 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



zone proper, but they do not extend beyond this intermedi- 

 ate strip into the dry desert. Other game animals occurring 

 in the zone, but not characteristic of it, are the yellow reed- 

 buck, Cape buffalo, the bushbuck, the elephant, the lion, 

 and the leopard. 



Immediately succeeding the coast belt the desert nyika 

 stretches inland, covering almost one-half of the entire 

 region. In British East Africa it is broken by the elevated 

 highlands, but northward, in the latitude of Lake Rudolf, it 

 extends unbroken to the Nile. The nyika is low, the great 

 bulk of it less than two thousand feet elevation, with a hot, 

 dry climate and subject to a long dry season and one or 

 two short rainy periods annually. The whole region is 

 covered by scattered thorn-bush or by impenetrable jun- 

 gles of thorn trees, euphorbias, aloes, and sansevierias. 

 Grassy plains are rare, as well as absolute deserts devoid of 

 vegetation. The nyika zone resembles the Somaliland 

 country closely, and many of the animals which are char- 

 acteristic of it have been derived from this source. Its 

 two most peculiar and wide-spread types are the gerenuk 

 and the oryx. Others are Grevy zebra. Hunter antelope, 

 both the greater and the lesser koodoo, the reticulated 

 giraffe, Peters gazelle and Giinther dikdik. A host of 

 other game animals occur in the nyika, but are not confined 

 to it. Such are Coke and Neumann hartebeest, the topi, 

 the impalla, the common waterbuck, the bushbuck. Kirk 

 dikdik, the common eland, the Cape buffalo, the Kilimanjaro 

 giraffe, quagga zebra, the wart-hog, the bush pig, the ele- 

 phant, the lion, the leopard, the cheetah, and the hunting 

 dog. 



The region most frequented by sportsmen is the high- 



