8o THE MAMMALS OF ETHIOPIAN AFRICA 



are of an altogether peculiar shape, being much flattened at their bases (where they 

 are widely separated) and more or less markedly incurved at the tips, which are 

 smooth and conical. This buffalo apparently ranges into the Gabun and Gambia, 

 but in the interior of Senegambia seems to be replaced by a larger brown race, B. c. 

 planiceros, in which the horns of the bulls are more extended outwards and re- 

 curved. This race not improbably intergrades with the Abyssinian buffalo. In 

 the Lake Chad district occurs yet another race, B. c. brachyceros, and there are 

 other types in Nigeria, in one of which the adult bulls are black, while young 

 bulls and cows at all ages are red or tawny. To particularise the numerous local 

 races into which the African buffalo has been divided is, however, quite beyond 

 the scope of the present work, and it must suffice to add that to the natives the 

 dwarf Congo buffalo is known as the niari, while by Europeans on the west coast 

 it is universally termed the bush-cow. 



Of the habits of buffaloes it will be unnecessary to write in this place, although 

 it may be mentioned that these animals are some of the most dangerous of African 

 big-game, and that of late years their numbers in East Africa were decimated 

 by rinderpest. 



The plains of southern and eastern Africa were in former 

 Eland. 



days a very paradise for antelopes, which were far more 



numerous, both in individuals and species, than in the whole of the rest of 



the world. Largest of all are the elands, of which the typical species, now 



generally known by naturalists as Taurotragus oryx, but formerly called Oreas 



carina, originally ranged over the greater part of southern, eastern, and central 



Africa, extending in one direction to Angola, and in the other to the upper 



tributaries of the Nile. At the present day it is rare except in the eastern 



Transvaal, Zululand, Rhodesia, Nyasaland, and East Africa generally. In addition 



to being the largest and heaviest of all antelopes, eland are distinguished from their 



nearest relatives, with the exception of the bongo, by the presence of horns in the 



females. In both sexes the horns form a close spiral, with few turns, and incline 



outwards and backwards almost in the plane of the face ; those of the cows being 



longer and more slender than those of the bulls. Old bulls have a thick mass of hair 



on the forehead, which in the southern races is chocolate-brown in colour. The 



muzzle is broad and naked, the tail tufted and reaching below the hocks, and there 



is a well-developed dewlap. In colour the ordinary eland is pale reddish fawn or 



bluish grey, the bluish tinge becoming more pronounced with advancing age, when 



the coat tends to become thin and allows the colour of the skin to show through. 



The typical southern race has the body-colour nearly uniform, but the eland of the 



Zambesi district have a dark line down the back, and the sides of the body marked 



with vertical white stripes, while there is also a dark garter on the inside and 



back of the fore-legs just above the knees. This striped race is known as 



T. o. livingstonei. As we continue north these striped eland gradually develop 



two oblique white lines on the face below the eyes, and the bulls have apparently 



a shorter and lighter-coloured " bush " on the forehead. The Laikipia representative 



of these chevron-faced eland has received the name of T. o. pattersoniantos. 



A fine eland of the ordinary species stands from 5 feet to 5 feet 7 inches at the 



withers, while the length of the head and body is about 10 feet ; the tail being about 



