ORDER ARTIODACTYLA : EVEN-TOED UNGULATES 717 



patches on dewlap, on upper part of foreleg, on breast, and on sides 

 and front of thigh; lower part of limbs bright rufous; tail black 

 above, tip and lower side white. Height at shoulder, 40 inches; tail, 

 20 inches. Horns 24 inches, twisted and sublyrate; basal half deeply 

 ridged; brownish black, with straw-colored tips. (Angas, 1849, 

 p. 89.) Record length of horns on front curve, 32f inches (Ward, 

 1935, p. 224) . 



Female smaller and hornless; color bright orange-rufous, paler 

 below; a median dorsal ridge of bristly black hair from crown to 

 tail; white spots on various parts of the body resembling those of 

 the male; stripes on sides more numerous and more clearly defined; 

 tail rufous above, white below, tip black. Height at shoulder, 33 

 inches. (Angas, 1849, p. 89.) 



The species ranges from Natal north to southern Nyasaland, and 

 inland to northeastern Transvaal and Southern Rhodesia. 



Natal. Angas (1849, p. 90), its discoverer, says it was "found in 

 small troops of eight or ten together" on the hills near St. Lucia Bay. 



In 1896 Selous (as quoted in Sclater and Thomas, 1900, vol. 4, 

 pp. 141-144) found Nyalas still common in dense bush along the 

 Usutu River in Amatongo-land. 



Elsewhere Selous (in Bryden, 1899, pp. 455-460) writes: 



[From St. Lucia Bay] northwards it appears to have once existed in all 

 the low-lying coast country, along the banks of all the rivers flowing into the 

 Indian Ocean, as far as the Sabi, and, following the Limpopo, penetrated a 

 good distance inland .... Between the Sabi and the Zambesi it has not yet 

 been met with .... 



Owing to the protection which has been afforded them of late years by the 

 Government in Zululand, inyalas have recently increased in that territory, 

 but in Amatongaland, and everywhere else in South-East Africa where these 

 antelopes exist, they are being very rapidly exterminated by the natives; 

 and as the rinderpest has also lately worked sad havoc amongst them, espe- 

 cially in Zululand, it is quite certain that this beautiful species will become 

 very rare, if not exactly extinct, in the coming century. 



In Zululand the species is plentiful along the Umkuzi River. "At 

 the present day the herds are small, though the natives assured me 

 that formerly, before the introduction of guns, they were commonly 

 much larger." C. R. Saunders writes that the largest number he has 

 seen in one herd is sixteen; also that "the inyala is among the species 

 of game that have suffered most heavily from the rinderpest plague 

 that has recently swept through Zululand." (Neumann, in Bryden, 

 1899, pp. 462-466.) 



"Zululand is such an easy country to reach that it is a marvel and 

 a blessing that Nyala have not long since ceased to exist there, de- 

 spite a very strict preservation. The advance of civilization and 

 occasional organized game drives for the elimination of 'Fly' do not 

 promise much for the future." (Maydon, 1932, p. 351.) 



