Wild Beasts and Their Ways 109 
Mrs. Gray’s waterbuck (Cobus maria), to which I have 
already made allusion as being a possible stepping stone 
between the Cervicaprines and the Oryx group. The 
greater part of this animal’s coat is a warm sepia or 
chocolate-red, tending here and there to black. The 
lips, chin, ears, and a long streak between the eyes 
and forehead are creamy-white. Behind the ears begins 
a bold white patch at the base of the skull, which 
narrows into a white line down the ridge of the neck 
and broadens into a bold patch over the shoulders. 
There is a broad white line on either side of the spine 
on the hind quarters which extends to the black tuft 
at the tip of the tail. There are also bold white 
markings along the sides of the stomach and the knees. 
’ The reedbucks, which I have already described as 
Drrcomben toy Lena. having such sharply recurved horns, are by no means so 
REEDBUCK (Cervicapra arundinum. beautiful in coloration, the West and Central African 
forms bemg mostly golden-yellow with a little white on 
the under parts. The Common reedbuck (Cervicapra arundinwm) inclines rather 
more towards grey in the male, as does also its dwarf forms in South and Hast Africa 
(C. fulvorufula and ©. bohor). In the reedbucks the tail is much shorter than in 
the kobs. It tends to be very bushy, however. The ears in some of the smaller 
species are very long, though not of such an extreme length as in the rhebok (Pelea). 
In all the reedbucks (but not in Pelea) there is a more or less naked gland below 
the base of the ear. This gland is also present in’ some of the waterbucks, as may 
be seen in one of my photographs. On the whole it would seem as though the 
reedbucks are to some extent independent variations of the Cervicaprine type which 
do not le along the main lne of ascent towards the Orygine group. 
The Oryxes and the Hippotragines are the handsomest and most notable development 
of antelope, with the possible exception of Mrs. Gray's waterbuck. What a noble 
creature, for example, is the South African Gemsbok, with its splendidly bold coloration 
of black, white, and warm mauve-grey! It is 
lamentable to think that this fine animal is now 
not far off extinction, after a century’s persecution 
at the hands of British and Boer sportsmen, a 
combination which history will subsequently brand 
as one of the most destructive agencies in the 
reduction of the African fauna. 
The Oryx, Addax, Sable and Roan antelopes 
and their alles form the sub-family of the | 
‘Hippotragine. Of all the other antelopes they: 
are most closely connected with the Cervicaprines, 
from which they differ only in the following 
features: the muzzle is hairy and not naked and 
wet as in the Cervicaprines; the molar teeth are 
‘taller, broader, and have developed accessory internal 
columns; they are therefore more complex than the 
teeth of the Cervicaprines, and offer a purely 
accidental resemblance to a similar development “Fisiograph by C. Knight 
in the Oxen, with which group, however, the TEMALGS OF WATERROGR 
hippotragine antelopes have no connection. <A (Cobus ellipsiprymnus). 
Se ete 
