338 ANTELOPES 



male bushbuck found on the southern bank of the Chobi. I also 

 procured at the same time the skin of a very young situtunga, prob- 

 ably not more than a month old, which had a lighter ground-colour 

 than that of the fcetus, with the yellowish stripes and spots much 

 fainter. In the adult, both male and female, the colour of the coat 

 is a uniform greyish brown on the body, the stripes and spots having 

 usually disappeared, though occasionally a few faint indications of 

 stripes may be seen. Under the belly and on the throat the hair is 

 whitish, and there is also a fairly well-defined, rather broad, white, 

 arrow-shaped mark across the nose, extending to each eye, and also 

 two ill-defined whitish spots on each cheek. The ears are rounded, 

 but smaller in proportion to the size of the animal than in other 

 members of the group. The hair is soft and silky and longer than 

 in any other antelope found in the same country. The hoofs are 

 excessively long, and, when splayed out, prevent the animal from 

 sinking too deeply in the swampy ground in which it lives. As in 

 the lechwi, the skin between the backs of the hoofs and the dew-claws 

 is devoid of hair. 



" Owing to the fact that the situtunga lives in the midst of vast 

 reed-beds and papyrus-swamps, and is therefore seldom seen, little is 

 known of its life-history. In 1879 I endeavoured to obtain specimens 

 of these antelopes in the reed-beds of the Chobi, and searched for them 

 in a small canoe paddled noiselessly by a single native, at early dawn 

 and after sunset, through the many small channels by which the reed- 

 bed was intersected. In some places patches of dry reeds had 

 been burnt off, and in such spots I always found tracks of where 

 these situtunga had been feeding on the young reeds springing 

 from the boggy ground. One morning I found a splendid old male 

 lying dead, which had been killed during the night, evidently by 

 another male of its own species, as it had a large wound in the side 

 behind the ribs, apparently made by a horn-thrust. The situtunga 

 seemed, however, never to come out to feed in the open ground except 

 during the night, always retiring into the thick reeds before daylight. 

 I disturbed a few as I passed close in the canoe, and heard them 

 splashing as they plunged through the water amongst the reeds and 

 papyrus, but actually saw only one, a female, that was standing in 

 water that came halfway up her sides, in the midst of a bed of reeds, 

 apparently engaged in feeding on the young shoots that appeared just 

 above the surface of the water. When she saw me sitting in the front 

 part of the canoe she dashed away through the reeds in a series of 

 plunges. 



