62 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



is now mounted in the Dover Museum, while the 

 rufous form is represented in the Natural History 

 Museum at South Kensington ; and a whitish 

 specimen, shot in 1836 by Sir W. Cornwallis 

 Harris, is figured on plate xviii. of that naturalist's 

 famous work on the South African Game animals. 

 The little "known roan of East Africa is pale 

 reddish on the body, with dark, reddish legs, and 

 some naturalists have thought it worth while to 

 give it the names of Hippotragits equinus ritfo- 

 pallidus and of Hippotragus langheldi : probably 

 this distinction will be abandoned when it has 

 become better known to museum experts. In 

 West Africa we see a greater development of the 

 reddish colouring, the Senegambian roan being 

 warm, rufous-grey or chestnut, while the northern- 

 most form (Baker's roan antelope) is mouse- 

 coloured. In all forms the body colouring merges 

 gradually into the white of the abdomen, in 

 remarkable distinction to the closely allied sable 

 antelope (Hippotragus niger\ which is arrayed in 

 a handsomely contrasted livery of jet black and 

 snowy white. 



Passing now to the history of the roan antelope, 

 we find that it was first seen by Europeans on 

 December 2ist, 1801, the individuals concerned 

 being the members of Sir John Barrow's party, 

 who had travelled into Bechuanaland for the 

 unromantic purpose of buying cattle. No specimen 



