THE ANTELOPES AND GAZELLES 165 



as much as 24 inches straight and 31 inches over the 

 curve. The female, it is to be noted, like all the 

 bushbucks and koodoos, and some other antelopes, 

 is hornless. She stands considerably smaller than the 

 male. Her colour is a bright red chestnut, with clear 

 white stripings. These magnificent bushbucks have 

 a somewhat limited habitat, and have up to the present 

 time been chiefly identified in the thick bush country 

 fringing the littoral of Zululand and Amatongaland, 

 nearly as far north as Delagoa Bay. More recently 

 they have been discovered on the western bank of the 

 Shire river, north of the Zambesi, and they may pos- 

 sibly be found in some other suitable localities of 

 British Central Africa. As a rule the inyala sticks 

 very closely to dense thickets and thorn jungles, only 

 quitting this shelter towards nightfall and at early 

 morning to feed. On the Shire river, during the 

 rainy season, so soon as the grass grows to a height 



/ o o o 



of 5 feet or thereabouts, these antelopes quit the bush 

 for a time and range in the grass. Even then, how- 

 ever, they are never very far from the sanctuary of 

 the bush, should they need it. 



Very few Englishmen have shot these rare ante- 

 lopes. Mr. Baldwin had good sport with them years 

 ago in the 'fifties, during his earlier journeys into Zulu- 

 land and Amatongaland. Mr. Selous undertook a 

 special journey to the country below Delagoa Bay in 

 1896, and was fortunate enough to shoot and secure 

 fine and perfect specimens of the male and female. A 

 pair of these are now in the Natural History Museum. 

 The best time to get a shot at this shy and secretive 



