AND SOME ANTELOPES OF ANGOLA. 321 



confines of these riv^ers and certainly not across the watershed. 

 It is, therefore, very restricted as to locality, and this cii-cuinstance 

 may account in part for its highly specialized development. Col. 

 J. C. B. Statham, who in 1920 penetrated into this country from 

 Malangein the north in quest of this Antelope, did not encounter 

 it in any large numbers until he reached the region in which, in 

 the autumn of 1918, I procured all my specimens: viz., some 

 70 miles south-east beyond the junction of the Quanza and 

 Luando. The distance between these two rivers is about 30 miles, 

 with a low, flat, ironstone ridge forming the divide, being steepest 

 towards the Quanza, from which it is distant about 10 miles. 

 The elevation of this country is roughly between 3000 feet and 

 4000 feet. The Sable here are mostly found on the Lua.n<lo side 

 of the watershed where several streams rise, such as the Luce, 

 the Kaluando, the Dunde, and the Lusinge, the latter being salt 

 and forming a group of salt-pans known to the natives as "Uchi- 

 8ongwe." This area is covered with an extensive bush -forest, 

 having narrow plains bordering the rivers and strung out along 

 the headwaters of the streams, and intervening here and there 

 as round or oval openings, termed " dambos." The trees vary in 

 density, but nowhere is it possible to see more than 300 yards 

 ahead between their massed trunks. The undergiowth is light, 

 consisting of little low seedlings of bush a few feet high, and a 

 fine, soft, sparsely-growing grass, which is the principal food of 

 the Sable. There are also extensive beds of a low leguminous 

 plant with a dull pink flower on which the Sable occasionally 

 browses, and numerous bulbs and tubers, with some very beautiful 

 flowers. The ground is thickly carpeted with dead leaves, and 

 studded at intervals with enormous termite mounds upon wliich 

 grow" trees and bushes. The soil is a sandy loam enriched with 

 leaf-mould, giving place on the dambos to the usual sun-l;aked 

 knobbly grey clay, v/here a hard, coarse grass growls which the 

 Sable never seems to eat. They were partial to the denser parts 

 of the forest, and especially where certain trees are abunrlant, 

 probably several varieties of Cassia, including the graceful Cassia 

 occidentalis and Huapaca gossireileri, a tree of stifif-set habit, 

 having large, expanded, racket-shaped leaflets radiating from one 

 stem like those of the horse-chestnut. 



The numbers in a herd vary from about eight to twenty indi- 

 viduals, about half of them being bulls. Two young bulls are 

 frequently to be met consorting together by themselves, always 

 very shy and wary. They have probably been driven out of the 

 herd by a jealous old bull. The sentinel of a herd was nearly 

 always a young bull. They no doubt make the best guards from 

 experience gained when running singly or in pairs in the forest. 

 I never encountered an old bull by himself. In a small herd 

 there is usually only one big black bull. In large herds there may 

 be two and quite a number of young bulls ranging from sub- adult 

 nearly black ones with half-developed upright horns to younger 

 ones of a dusky-tawny colour. 



