THE NYLGHAU 865 



Sr x 

 unobserved. They (the Kaffirs) then paddle alongside, and assagai them from the 



canoe. Another way the natives have of killing them is by setting fire to the reeds 

 when they become quite dry, and then waiting for the sititunga in their canoes in 

 one of the channels of open water by which the marsh is intersected." Further up 

 the Chobe river it is stated that these antelopes are in the habit of diving, and even 

 sleeping beneath the water with only their nostrils exposed. 



,, .. The guib ( T. scriptus} is the last representative of the harnessed an- 



telopes, and differs from all the others by its inferior size, being about 

 equal in dimensions to an ordinary goat. The average length of the horns is about 

 twelve inches, but specimens of fourteen inches and one of sixteen and one-fourth 

 inches have been recorded. This species has a wide distribution, ranging from 

 Abyssinia to the Cape; and it exhibits such variations in color that it was originally 

 split up into four distinct species, now regarded as varieties. In the Abyssinian 

 variety, which is shorter and stouter than the others, the general color is yellowish, 

 and the stripes are nearly obsolete; but there is one distinct longitudinal band, some- 

 times broken into spots, and the haunches are spotted, while the back has a dark line. 

 In the typical variety, from West, Central, and South- Central Africa (which is the 

 one represented in the illustration on p. 864), the color is bright rufous, brilliantly 

 marked all over the body with white spots and longitudinal and vertical stripes. In 

 the males the line down the middle of the back is white; and the chest has a fringe 

 of blackish hair. In East Africa we come across a third variety in w r hich the gen- 

 eral color of the bucks is dark brown, with two or three obscure vertical stripes on 

 the hind -quarters, and even these occasionally absent. The spots are variable, 

 although less numerous than in the preceding variety. Lastty, we have the true 

 bush buck of the Cape; in which the coloration is of a uniform dark brown at all 

 ages, with no trace of stripes, and the spots reduced- to a few indistinct ones on the 

 haunches. 



Guib, or bush buck, are very common in most parts of Africa. Writing of this 

 species, Mr. Selous says that it is " never met with except in places where dense 

 bush comes right down to the water's edge; and on the Chobe, where I have seen 

 most of these antelopes, I have never found one at a distance of more than a hun- 

 dred yards from the river. ' ' 



Species Remains of antelopes more or less nearly allied to Tragelaphus are 

 common in the Tertiaries of Europe, as far down as the middle Miocene, 

 so that the group is evidently a very old one. 



THE NYLGHAU 

 Genus Boselaphus 



The nylghau (Boselaphus tragocamelus} which is the largest of the Indian ante- 

 lopes, appears to be the Oriental representative of the group of African species described 

 above, although it differs from them in several important structural features. The 

 males only are horned, and the horns themselves are short, smooth, nearly straight, 

 and direct upward and backward, with a triangular section at the base, but becoming 

 55 



