PUKU 217 



the puku, as well as the lechwi, was first met with in the Ngami 

 district ; but this can scarcely have been the case, as neither Andersson 

 nor Baldwin, who visited the lake shortly afterwards, and were keen 

 naturalist-hunters, ever met with it there, while, so far as I have been 

 able to discover, none of the native tribes living on or near Lake Ngami 

 are acquainted with the puku, and have no name for it in any of their 

 various languages. 



"During a canoe -journey down the Zambesi from the Barotsi 

 valley to the mouth of the Chobi in 1888, I found puku thinly 

 scattered along both banks of the river below the falls of Gonyi, 

 but never saw more than seven or eight in a herd. Nowhere in this 

 part of Africa are they likely to be found at the present day in 

 anything but small numbers ; but as their range extends right across 

 South Central Africa to Lake Tanganyika, it may be hoped that this 

 species will not become extinct for a long time. As a rule, puku are 

 found in small herds of from three or four to a dozen in number, 

 although, as remarked above, I have seen as many as fifty together 

 in a part of the country where they used to be common. Old rams 

 live alone, or several of them consort together ; and I once saw a herd 

 of fifteen composed entirely of old males. I have never met with these 

 antelopes at a distance of more than 200 or 300 yards from the river 

 they frequented ; and they are usually found grazing close along the 

 water's edge. In habits they appear to resemble the waterbuck rather 

 than the lechwi, as, like the former, they live on dry ground close to 

 the bank of a river, and lie resting during the heat of the day in the 

 shade of trees and bushes, but are never found in the treeless flooded 

 grass-plains, in which situations lechwi are alone met with. I have 

 never seen puku and lechwi in company, and the habits of the two arc 

 so different that I find it difficult to believe that they ever associate, 

 although doubtless they may in some places be seen feeding near to 

 one another. I have, however, frequently seen puku and impala 

 feeding together. These two species stand just about the same 

 height at the withers (about 3 feet), but the heavy, rather clumsy- 

 looking build of the former contrasts strikingly with the light and 

 graceful proportions of the latter. In 1874 I might, no doubt, have 

 secured some fine specimens of puku-horns on the Chobi, if I had shot 

 a number of rams and picked out the heads with the longest ; but I 

 seldom interfered with these antelopes, and only shot a few for food, 

 among them two adult rams, whose heads are still in my collection. 

 The horns of both measure 16 inches, which is probably about the 

 average length in full-grown males in that district. 



