Wild Beasts and their Ways 207 
of Jackson’s hartebeest meets that of Coke’s hartebeest, and Mr. Doggett and myself 
and several other people have shot hartebeests which would appear to be hybrids 
between the two. Coke’s hartebeest merges in British Central and Portuguese East 
Africa into Lichtenstein’s hartebeest (B. lichtensteini), very similar in coloration to 
Coke’s, but whiter on the rump and redder on the line of the back and forehead, and 
with horns of distinctly different aspect. The horns of Lichtenstein’s hartebeest have in 
the male a very broad, flat, frontal boss, and are then tightly twisted inwards, outwards, 
and backwards. South of the Limpopo River and northwards across the Kalahari Desert 
into the southern regions of Angola dwells in rapidly decreasing numbers the beautiful 
Cape hartebeest, a gorgeously coloured antelope with a white chevron across the forehead 
interrupting a jet black line from the base of the horns to the nostrils, a black patch 
above and below the eye, white ears, a black ridge to the neck, black patches on the 
outer sides of the front and hind limbs, and a pure white blaze on the hind quarters, 
with another white touch on either knee and on the belly. The tail is black, and the 
whole of the rest of the form is red-gold. One would have thought such beauty of 
colour, combined with a form more graceful than that of the other hartebeests, would 
have prevailed with the politicians of the self-governing colonies to secure effective 
protection for this beautiful form. It has not, however, and in common with all the 
other South African antelopes this species is on the point of extinction. If it is saved 
at all it will be from the fact that it fortunately inhabits part of Portuguese South- 
West Africa. In Somaliland there is the remarkable Swayne’s hartebeest, which is 
perhaps the hartebeest most nearly allied to the gnus. ‘This creature is mainly a dark 
umber brown on the upper parts, with pale yellowish lower limbs. The fore limbs 
are boldly marked on their upper parts with black, and there is also a black frontlet 
and a black nose. In all the hartebeests the tail is fairly long (though not so long as 
in the gnus), and is plumed only along the lower part of its outer edge. 
The topis (Damaliscus), with one exception, are extremely handsome in coloration. 
That exception is the rather aberrant Hunter’s antelope, found, like so many other curious 
types, In Somaliland and the northern part of British Hast Africa. This animal has a 
white-plumed tail (plumed only along the inner aspect, not the outer, as in the 
hartebeests), white ears, and a white chevron mark across the forehead. It is 
elsewhere a monotonous buff colour. J have already alluded to its rather remarkable 
pallah-ike horns. The other topis have horns of a shorter and simpler kind, rather 
like those of the smaller cobus antelopes. In South Africa, Hast Africa, and thence 
right across the Lake Chad regions to Senegambia there is a well-marked group of 
Damaliscus or Topi antelopes which are remark- 
able for thei sleek satin-lke coats of a deep red 
(almost inclining to mauve in parts), marked more 
or less vividly with black on the forearm, hind 
quarters and forehead. The legs are generally 
yellow, and there is often a touch of white on 
the abdomen. The ears are long and white. 
The tail, hke that of the hartebeests, is plumed 
with black on the outside of its lower part. This 
type of Damaliscus, known as korrigum, tiang, 
jumela, and sassaby (tsesébe), is found practically 
all over tropical Africa south of the Sahara Desert, 
outside the dense forests and away from the more 
arid deserts. South of the Zambezi, however. the 
: ss - sassaby 1s very nearly extinct. In Cape Colony 
Photograph by W. P. Dando. > 0 0 : 
BUSHBUCK (Zragelaphus sylvaticus). there still exist in a single farm near Bredasdorp 
