ANTELOPES. 



321 



the Hand, is waterless for three months, from January to March. Much of it is 

 bush-covered wilderness, or open semi-desert, but some of the higher plains are, at 

 the proper season, in early season, covered as far as the eye can reach with a 

 beautiful carpet of green grass, 

 like English pasture - land. At 

 this time of the year pools of 

 water may be found, as the 

 rainfall is abundant. This kind 

 of open grass - country is called 

 the Ban. Not a bush is to be 

 seen, and some of these plains 

 are thirty or forty miles in extent 

 each way. There is not always 

 much game to be got in the Hand, 

 but a year ago, coming on to 

 ground which had not been 

 visited by Europeans, I found one 

 of these plains covered wdth herds 

 of hartebeests, there being perhaps 

 a dozen herds in sight at one time, 

 each herd containing three or four 

 hundred individuals. Hundreds 

 of bulls were scattered singly on 

 the outskirts, and in the spaces 

 between the herds, grazing, fight- 

 ing, or lying down. The scene I 

 describe was at a distance of over a hundred miles from Berbera, and the game 

 has probably been driven far beyond that point by now." 



Cooke's hartebeest is of a reddish brown colour on the upper-parts and greyish 

 brow r n beneath, the head being dark rufous in front and fulvous on the sides, and 

 thus very different from that of the sig. The horns are also shorter and less widely 

 expanded than in the latter. On the other hand, the tora antelope has the whole 

 face of a uniform pale isabelline tint, like that of the body ; the horns being fully 

 as long as in the sig, but rising much more rapidly from the base, then coming 

 farther forwards, and projecting much more in the backward direction. Tora horns 

 vary from 12 to 19 \ inches in length. 



The konzi (B. lichtensteini) is a very distinct species, inhabiting 

 all the Zambesi region and Nyasaland, characterised by its small 

 horns, w r hich are much expanded and flattened at their bases. These horns incline 

 at first upw r ards and outwards, and then inwards, with their tips directed backwards 

 and upwards, so as to enclose a kind of vase-shaped space, .their length ranging 

 from 14 to 20 inches. The skull is also shorter than in any of the foregoing species. 

 The general colour is a little lighter than that of the hartebeest ; the tail, knees, and 

 the front of the legs being black, while the face is without any dark markings, but 

 the buttocks usually have a pale yellow patch, and the under-parts are likewise 

 yellowish. In Nyasaland this species, according to Mr. Crawshay, is very generally 



VOL. II. 21 



HEAD OF SWAYNE'S HARTEBEEST. After Rowland Ward. 



Konzi. 



