338 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



or whitish coloration. The tail is long and tufted, the false 

 hoofs are well developed, and the lachrymal glands are ab- 

 sent. The skull is characterized by its short snout, dis- 

 tinct lachrymal-nasal sinus, and narrow cheek-teeth, which 

 show only a rudiment of the internal accessory columns. 

 Both sexes are horned, the horns being slightly more slender 

 in the female, notwithstanding their greater length. The 

 sexes are equal in size. The oryx is strictly a desert or dry- 

 country antelope. It ranges from the deserts of Arabia and 

 the Sahara southward to central German East Africa, and 

 is found again farther south in the Kalahari Desert and in 

 southern Angola. Four living species are recognized: the 

 gemsbok of southwest Africa, the beisa of northeast Africa, 

 the leucoryx of the southern Sahara, and the beatrix oryx 

 of Arabia. 



Two allied fossil genera have been described, Protoryx, 

 with four species from the Upper Miocene of Asia Minor, 

 and PalcEoryXy with three Upper Miocene species from the 

 same region, and four more recent Pliocene ones from Italy 

 and Spain. 



Beisa Oryx 

 Oryx beisa 



The races of oryx assembled under beisa agree in having 

 the head and body markings and the shape of the horns 

 very much as in the gemsbok of southwest Africa. They, 

 however, are readily distinguishable by the lack of the 

 black rump patch, and the throat mane, as well as the much 

 narrower extent of the knee bands and the obsolete char- 

 acter of the dark stripes on the cannon-bones. In the re- 

 duction of the black marking they show some approach to 

 the more northern leucoryx and Arabian oryx which have 

 lost both the dorsal and lateral stripes as well as the 

 leg stripes. The beisa and its races inhabit the East 

 Coast of Africa from the Red Sea port of Suakin south 

 through Somaliland and Abyssinia to central German East 

 Africa. 



