West African Hartebeest 



35 



When I was stationed on the Gambia River in 1889 I procured three 

 pairs of horns on frontlets of this species from the native trader who shot 

 them, more than 1 50 miles up this great waterway. The largest of these 

 measures nearly 20 inches in length, but they have a pair 23 inches in the 

 Berlin Museum. 



These animals inhabit suitable districts in Western Africa from 

 Senegal to the Cameroons. Col. F. D. Lugard shot them at Lokoja on 

 the Niger, whence also the late Dr. Higgs sent home a head and neck 

 trophy. Percy Rendall. 



West African Hartebeest (Bubalis major) 

 Hausa Name, Kanki ; Yoruba, Ele ; Igara, Orcha 



With the exception of the kob antelope, the West African hartebeest 

 is perhaps the commonest of antelopes from Senegal to the Congo. 



With its curiously sloping quarters, its long neck, and longer head, it is, 

 at rest and in its slower paces, an ungainly, if not an absolutely ugly 

 animal ; but at top speed, when stretched out by fear, it has an easy, 

 graceful motion which is distinctly unique, and which redeems it in the 

 eyes of the lover of the beautiful. 



The adult animal, male or female, is of a light sandy-red colour, vary- 

 ing considerably in depth of tone according to the nature of the country it 

 inhabits. At one time I was inclined to believe that the colour of its coat 

 varied during the year, but later experiences told against any such theory. 

 The lighter tone, which is almost a fawn-gray, was found in one shot within 

 ten days of the shooting of one of quite the darkest, almost a deep red tone, 

 and as there was a distance of 500 miles between the places where they 

 were shot and the general characteristics of the country were opposed, 

 1 could only account for the difference of shade on the theory that nature 

 adapts the colour to the environment. But age has also an effect, as the 



