THE KUDUS 859 



August; and it appears that the females do not breed oftener than once in every 

 two years, so that the rate of increase is slow. When they have their calves with 

 them, the cows will attack and impale dogs on their horns; but at other seasons 

 both sexes are quite harmless. Mr. Selous states that the flesh of the eland has 

 been very generally overestimated; and during the dry season, when these animals 

 often subsist entirely upon leaves, it is quite uneatable. In captivity the eland 

 breeds freely; and it was at one time considered that it might be profitably accli- 

 matized in England. 



Occasionally, cow eland are found with one or both horns abnor- 

 mally formed, such abnormal horns being long and nearly straight, with 

 Horns . . 



a triangular cross section. Such a pair, measuring thirty inches in a 



straight line, were described a few years ago under the name of Antilope triangu- 

 laris, and were supposed to indicate an extinct species of antelope, which was subse- 

 quently referred to a new genus. 



The magnificent animal known as the Derbian eland (O. derbianus) 

 ' an replaces the common species on the West Coast in the districts of An- 

 gola and Senegambia. It is considerably larger than the southern and eastern 

 form, and the bulls have a large dark brown mane and much finer horns. The horns 

 of the cows are, however, relatively small. Male horns have been measured of 

 thirty-four and one-half inches in length. 



KUDUS 

 Genus Strepsiceros 



The graceful and beautifully-marked antelopes- known as kudus, of which there 

 are likewise two species, are distinguished from eland by the absence of horns in the 

 female, and by the corkscrew-like spiral formed by those of the male, as well as 

 by the much-shorter tail, which does not reach the hocks. The horns are char- 

 acterized by the great development of the front ridge, and rise from the skull at an 

 obtuse angle to the plane of the face. The neck is maned, and the throat may be 

 furnished with a fringe of long hair. The body is marked with narrow vertical 

 white stripes descending from a white line on the back; and there is also a white 

 chevron on the face, together with white spots on the cheek, and splashes of the 

 same color on the throat and limbs. The hoofs are short. 



The common kudu ( Strepsiceros kudu~}, which is the species repre- 

 Common Kudu , , . .,, . ,. . . , j , . , . ,, 



sented in our illustration, is distinguished by its large size, the open 



spiral formed by the enormous horns of the male, and the presence of a thick fringe 

 of hair on the throat. The ground color of females and young males is reddish or 

 grayish brown, marked with eight or nine white stripes; but in old males it becomes 

 bluish gray, apparently owing to the skin showing through the scanty hair. The 

 kudu is only inferior in size to the eland, a full-grown bull standing about four 

 feet four inches at the shoulder. The horns may attain a length of three feet five 

 or six inches in a straight line, while one instance is recorded where the one horn 

 measured three feet nine inches, and the other three feet nine and one-half inches. 



