GNUS — HARTEBEESTS 



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common up to the Zambesi, beyond which it is represented by local races. Al- 

 though heavier in build and clumsier in its movements than the white-tailed species, 

 it has very similar habits. The tail exceeds 3 feet in length, the head and body 

 measure 7^ feet in length, the shoulder-height exceeds 4 feet, and the horns may 

 reach 33 inches along the curve in the bulls. The colour is dark bluish grey 

 marked with vertical dark stripes. The horns are quite different in their curvature 

 from those of the white-tailed species, and more like those of a buffalo. The tail 

 is dark. One local race (C. t. johnstoni), from the plains north of the Zambesi, is 

 characterised by the presence of a white mark on the face below the eyes. A 

 second race (G. t. albojubatus), distinguished by its light colour and the whitish 

 throat-fringe, represents the species in East Africa to the northward of Kilimanjaro. 

 The Cape hartebeest (Bubalis cama) is the southernmost 



Hartebeests. 



representative of a group of antelopes allied to the gnus, to which 

 reference has been already made in the chapter on North Africa. The Cape species, 

 now exterminated from the greater part of its habitat, which originally extended 

 from the Cape to the Limpopo, has become rare in the Orange River Colony, 

 Basutoland, and the Transvaal. A few are, however, kept on farms in Natal, and 

 it is occasionally met with as far north as Matabililand and Mashonaland. The 

 general colour is brownish rufous, with blackish markings on the face and limbs. 

 The shoulder-height is about 48 inches, and the horns are V-shaped and bent 

 suddenly backwards, with their supporting pedicle very tall. As in all hartebeests, 

 the face is long, and the hind-quarters fall away. Nearly allied, but lacking the 

 blackish markings on the face and legs, is the lelwel hartebeest (B. lelwel) of the 

 Bahr-el-Ghazal, of which B. I. jacksoni of the Victoria Nyanza district forms a local 

 race; another member of the same group being Neumann's hartebeest (B. neumanni) 

 from the north end of Lake Rudolf. In addition to the high horn-pedicle, the 

 horns of the bulls of the two species last named form a V when viewed from 

 in front. A second group is typified by the tora hartebeest (B. tora) of Abyssinia 

 and the southern part of the valley of the Blue Nile, in which the pedicle is 

 shorter and the horns are divergent and shaped like an inverted bracket ("^ v ^"). 

 In this species the general colour is pale tawny with the chin and tail-fringe alone 

 black ; but in the nearly allied sig (B. swaynei) of the barren plains of Somaliland 

 known as the Haud, the general colour is darker, and there are blackish markings 

 on the face and legs. A third member of this group is the kongoni (B. cokei), of 

 British and German East Africa, characterised by its relatively short and thick 

 horns, and uniformly rufous fawn coat. The western hartebeest (B. major) of 

 Senegambia, already alluded to in the preceding chapter, is a large red species 

 with V-shaped horns and a low pedicle. Finally, the konzi (B. lichtensteini), 

 which is uniformly yellow tawny, represents a group by itself, and is easily 

 recognised by the great basal expansion and flatness of the horns, which are much 

 curved inwards before the terminal backward bend, and are supported on a low, 

 wide pedicle. Mashonaland, Barotsiland, and Nyasaland are the homes of this 

 unmistakable species. 



With the herola (Damaliscus hunteri) we come to a second genus of harte- 

 beest-like antelopes, typified by the South African sassabi. In none of them are 

 the peculiarities characteristic of the more typical hartebeests fully developed, as 



