36 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES CHAP. 



which was not a Jackson's hartebeest, but which 

 closely resembled an animal of that species in the 

 character of its horns and the measurements of its 

 skull, whilst all the others in the same herd appeared 

 to be true Neumann's. I have known too of one 

 undoubted case of the interbreeding of the South 

 African hartebeest (1). Caama} with the tsessebe 

 (Damaliseus lunatus}. 



This animal (an adult male) was shot by my 

 friend Cornelis van Rooyen in Western Matabele- 

 land, where the ranges of the two species just 

 overlap. In coloration it was like a tsessebe, but 

 had the comparatively bushy tail of the hartebeest, 

 whilst its skull and horns (which are, I am glad to 

 say, in the collection of the Natural History Museum 

 at South Kensington) are exactly intermediate 

 between those of the two parent species. This 

 skull has been very unsatisfactorily labelled " sup- 

 posed hybrid between B. Caama and D. lunatus" 

 But as, when I presented it to the Natural History 

 Museum, I gave at the same time a full description 

 of the animal to which it had belonged, which I 

 got from the man who actually shot it, there is no 

 supposition in the matter. If the skull and horns 

 in question are not those of a hybrid between the 

 South African hartebeest and the tsessebe, then 

 they must belong to an animal still unknown to 

 science. 



There is, I think, no large mammal in the whole 

 world whose coat shows a greater richness of bloom 

 and a more abrupt contrast of colours than the 

 bontebok, so called by the old Dutch colonists of 

 the Cape because of its many coloured hide, for 

 bont means spotted, or blotched, or variegated. The 

 whole neck, the chest, the sides and under parts 

 of the head, and the sides of the body of this re- 

 markable antelope are of a rich dark brown, and 

 the central part of the back is of a beautiful purple 



