3 o 4 EASTERN ETHIOPIA xxiv 



all the species have well-marked face-glands. The 

 name duiker or diver is derived from the habit these 

 antelopes have of diving quickly in and out of grass or 

 bushes when alarmed. Duikers are found throughout 

 British East Africa and Uganda, and their horns and 

 skulls adorn the walls of settlers' houses. In Uganda 

 there is a species, scarcely larger than a rabbit, called 

 the blue duiker ; its skin is a regular article of 

 exchange in the market at Mengo. The Baganda 

 make rugs of the skins by sewing them neatly 

 together. 



Zoologists find it difficult to frame definitions for 



O 



distinguishing antelopes from sheep, oxen, and goats. 

 The difficulty in this matter of classification is betrayed 

 in their names. Even the familiar word gazelle comes 

 from the Arabic ghazal, a wild goat. Then the high- 

 sounding classical names derived from Greek and Latin 

 authors, as applied to these animals, bring out the 

 difficulty of deciding between antelope and buffalo 

 in the case of the gnu and hartebeest, for they are 

 grouped as bubaline antelopes (bubalus, a buffalo). 

 The big ox-like antelope, the eland, is taurotragus. 

 The elegant roan antelope (Hippotragus equinus) has 

 many equine characters but molar teeth like those of 

 oxen. The genus to which the reedbucks belong has a 

 name, Cervicapra, which suggests that the species 

 comprised in it have characters which are cervine and 

 hircine as well as antilopine. In spite of all these facts 

 an antelope is not a goat. The early Dutch colonists 

 called the antelope bok (pronounced buck) which means 

 a goat. In this way arose such compounds as springbok, 

 stein bok, duikerbok, etc. 



A study of the generic and specific names imposed 

 on antelopes by zoologists shows a strange mixture of 

 classical names like oryx and strepsiceros, harnessed to 

 native names like kudu, jiniela, and gnu ; or names 

 expressing affinity, such as cervicapra ; physical char- 

 acters like imberbis (beardless) ; lucky sportsmen and 



