LECH III 219 



in the adult are tawny, tending to whitish on the outer border, although 

 black-tipped in the young ; and the tail, which reaches to about the 

 hocks, terminates in a small black tuft. The shoulder-height is 40 or 

 41 inches, and the record horn-length 34^ inches. 



" A native of Zambesia and Barotsiland, the lechwi," writes 

 Mr. Selous, " is only found in the neighbourhood of those portions 

 of the larger rivers of Central and South Central Africa where, the 

 banks being low, there are large expanses of country which are always 

 inundated, or in which large shallow lagoons are constantly present, 

 as the result of the annual overflow from the river. It is therefore, 

 or perhaps I ought to say was, particularly common in the open 

 grassy plains always more or less inundated by the overflow from 

 the Tamalakan, Mababi, Machabi, Sunta, and Chobi rivers. In the 

 Barotsi valley, on the upper Zambesi, it used to be very abundant, 

 as also along the swampy rivers flowing into the upper Zambesi from 

 the east, such as the Majili and the Lumbi ; but along the course of 

 the Zambesi itself to the south of the Barotsi valley it is nowhere 

 found except in the flat swampy ground between Sesheke and the 

 mouth of the Chobi. In 1878 I met with large herds of lechwi in 

 the swamps of the Lukanga river, a tributary of the Kafukwe, about 

 150 miles south-west of Lake Bengweolo ; and as it has also been 

 described as abundant in the neighbourhood of that lake, as well as 

 on the shores of Lake Mweru, the species must have a more extended 

 range beyond the Zambesi than it has to the south of that river. In 

 1879 I met with lechwi among some lagoons on the lower Botletli 

 river not far from Lake Komadau, where Dr. Livingstone probably 

 originally discovered this species in 1849. Personally I have never 

 met with lechwi except in flooded ground, or the immediate vicinity 

 of such ground, and, except the situtunga, there is no other antelope 

 in southern or South Central Africa that so well merits the name of 

 water-antelope as the lechwi. Waterbuck, puku, and reedbuck live 

 and feed on the banks of rivers and round the edges of swamps, but 

 all three like to keep their feet on dry ground. The lechwi, on the 

 contrary — at least this was the case wherever I met with this species 

 — spends the greater part of its life knee-deep in water, grazing over 

 flooded plains or in shallow lagoons, where the depth is insufficient to 

 entirely submerge the young reeds and grass on which it feeds. When 

 resting, these antelopes lie either just on the water's edge, or actually 

 in the shallowest water. 



" The hoof of the lechwi is longer than that of the waterbuck, reed- 

 buck, or puku ; but as the animal frequents flooded ground where the 



