348 ANTELOPES 



a mile or two away from the hills in the maritime plain, where they 

 may stray during the night ; but as there is far more grass and 

 vegetation on the hills than on the plain, it is apparently not for food 

 that they go. One bull I wounded in the hills made for the plain, 

 and was eventually killed some way from the hills. In colour the male 

 is iron-grey ; an old one shot by myself had three white stripes down 

 its sides, and one across its quarters. A standing mane, longest on 

 the neck and withers, runs along the whole length of the back : it is 

 white, variegated with black. A long fringe of black and white hair 

 hangs down the whole length of the throat. There are three white 

 spots on each cheek ; and two white lines, one from the corner of each 

 eye, meet on the face. The males, when young, are of the same colour 

 as the females, viz. a yellowish brown ; but they soon, I think, assume 

 the grey coat, as I saw one with horns not more than about a foot 

 long whose fore-quarters were grey while his hind-quarters were brown. 

 The largest herd I saw was of twelve, one fine bull and eleven females ; 

 but the more usual size of a herd is half-a-dozen or less. A herd of 

 females without a bull with them is often seen ; and if a bull is alone, 

 he is usually a good one. Stalking kudu is hard work ; the pre- 

 cipitous ravines and the denseness of the thickets to which they retire 

 soon after dawn rendering success unlikely if they keep to the same 

 side of the ravine you are on, as it is impossible to see them. At 

 dawn, or soon after, and in the evening, kudu may be met with on 

 the more open flat tracts on the hills, but after the sun is well up the 

 place to look for them is the ravines. Livingstone mentions the kudu 

 as one of the antelopes that can exist without water. Judging from 

 the paucity of their tracks at the water-holes in the hills, I am of 

 opinion that Somali kudu, though they appeared to drink regularly, 

 do not require to do so every day. The young are, I think, born 

 about November ; and I once had a young male a few days old caught 

 in that month. When alarmed, the kudu bark loudly, the sound being 

 similar to that of sambar. The meat is good, the Somalis preferring 

 it to that of any other antelope." 



Whether kudu from South Africa exhibit any colour-change 

 corresponding to that noticed by Mr. Inverarity in the Somali repre- 

 sentatives of the species, I have been unable to ascertain. Probably, 

 however, the change is confined to the northern race, as the southern 

 one is never distinctly grey. 



Female kudu, it may be added, occasionally develop horns ; but 

 these are generally more or less deformed, and have a closer spiral 

 than those of males. In one such female the left horn is directed 



