ROAN, SABLE, AND ORYX 339 



Key to the Races of heisa 



Ears not pencillate; hair whorl situated on the rump; body purer 

 gray in color annectens 



Ears pencillate; hair whorl situated midway between rump and withers; 

 body usually with a brownish cast over the drab 



callotis 



Ibean Beisa Oryx 



Oryx beisa annectens 



Native Names: Samburru, sala; Rendile, ogorr. 



Oryx annectens Hollister, 1910, Smith. Misc. Coll., vol. 56, No. 2, p. 7. 



Range. — From the Tana River, the northern slopes of 

 Kenia and Lake Baringo northward throughout the desert 

 and Lake Rudolf region to the Abyssinian border. 



Specimens of this race secured on the Laikipia Plateau 

 at the headwaters of the Northern Guaso Nyiro by John 

 Jay White furnished HolHster with the material which led 

 to the description of the race in 1910. The present race of 

 the beisa had been collected some years previously by the 

 elephant hunter Arthur Neumann as well as by other 

 sportsmen, but these early specimens were considered by 

 naturaUsts to be identical with the Abyssinian race gal- 

 lorum, or else to represent true beisa of the Red Sea coast. 



Oryx were plentiful along the Northern Guaso Nyiro. 

 One of them, a bull, tipped the scales at four hundred 

 pounds. They lived on the dry flats, both where there were 

 open stretches of grass, and where they were covered with 

 leafless thorn scrubs. They were found in small parties and 

 herds of as many as fifty individuals. They also went singly 

 or in couples; apparently the breeding cow stayed by her- 

 self until the calf was a few days old, when she rejoined the 

 herd. We found a cow with a just-born calf, accompanied 

 by a younger animal; the latter was probably the cow's 

 young of the preceding year. In September all the calves 



