CHAPTER XXXII 



NATURAL HISTORY 



It was not till the Expedition arrived at Ibi on the Benue 

 that the systematic work of big game collecting was com- 

 menced, and then Gosling soon found a fine field for his 

 labours. 



During the tornado season in April which heralds the 

 approach of the rains the country around Ibi and to the 

 north of the river was literally teeming with game, for with 

 the first fall of the rains, the succulent young grass was 

 springing up where the dead grass had been burnt by the 

 natives. Large herds of kob with the young of the year 

 frequented the open valleys and places where the pools were 

 beginning to fill up afresh. In the same localities there were 

 great numbers of hartebeest, the West African species and 

 the Senegal, of which the former were the more numerous, 

 and in the neighbourhood of Serikin Kudu, where I shot my 

 Hon, it was a common sight to see sixty or seventy of them 

 in a herd. There was also a fair number of reedbuck, and 

 in the more enclosed portions of the country roan antelope 

 and lesser bushbuck were met with. Waterbuck, singly 

 and in pairs, were always to be found in the covers along the 

 rivers and streams where they made their tracks down to the 

 water's edge. Hardly a day passed on our journeys along 

 the rivers when we did not see one or two of them, and 



