152 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



are very long, pointed, and drooping, and are decorated 

 at the tips with dark tufts of hair. The neck and 

 withers carry an upstanding, reddish brown mane. 

 The form is robust, and the roan is altogether one of 

 the sturdiest of all antelopes. It is also one of the 

 most courageous, charging fiercely at its pursuers, 

 and, with its strong, recurved horns, inflicting danger- 

 ous injuries. Roan antelopes usually run in smaller 

 troops than do sable, and are seldom found number- 

 ing more than a dozen in a herd. More often than 

 not from five to eight will be encountered together. 

 In former days in South Africa they ranged over 

 fairly open country, and in Gordon-Cumming's time, 

 1843-1850, were to be met with in Griqualand West, 

 where little timber or bush is to be found. At the 

 present day, south of the Zambesi, they frequent by 

 choice open downs or grassy valleys, or clearings in 

 the vicinity of thin forest and bush. 



The range of this great antelope is a very extensive 

 one, practically over all Africa, where the country is 

 suited to its habits, from the Limpopo river to the 

 Upper Nile, Nigeria, Gambia, and Senegambia. In 

 different localities various sub-species, slightly differ- 

 ing from the South African type, have been identified. 

 These, however, are to be looked upon as merely 

 local variations of this antelope. The so-called 

 Baker's antelope of the Upper Nile Valley, discovered 

 by Sir Samuel Baker in the early sixties, is nothing 

 more than the roan antelope of that region. I have 

 seen some fine specimens of the roan antelope, shot 

 by my friend, Mr. G. W. Penrice, in Portuguese 



