324 Great and Small Game of Africa 



tail short, with a black stripe down the middle on the upper side, tip 

 and lower part white ; a black crescentic mark round the buttocks ; feet 

 without lateral hoofs ; a tuft of black hair on each hind-leg over the 

 fetlock covers a gland containing a fatty secretion. The horns of the 

 male are lyrate, semi-spiral, more or less widely divergent, and deeply 

 annulated. When they are about 12 inches in length (in young rams) the 

 tips converge, forming an oval, and I have seen many that actually cross. 

 In South-East Africa 17 inches in a straight line from tip to base is a fair 

 average length. The largest pair I have shot measured, as do those of Mr. 

 Selous' recorded pair, 20 inches in a straight line, tip to base, 25^ inches 

 over the front curve, and 14 inches between tips. These measurements 

 are greatly exceeded by those of East African impala, but seldom by South 

 African heads. 1 The vertical standing height of a full-grown ram is 3 feet 

 to 3 feet 2 inches ; of a ewe 2 feet 8 inches ; the latter are hornless. Up 

 till quite recently it was supposed that the impala of British Central Africa 

 was specifically distinct from that of the south, solely, so far as I can 

 judge, because the so-called type specimen happened to be a somewhat 

 smaller animal, with smaller head and shorter horns ; but Mr. Sclater 

 informs me that the idea of separating them is abandoned. This is as it 

 should be. I have shot many in both places, and have secured many 

 specimens of the southern impala, which are quite as small as, or even 

 smaller than, any I obtained from British Central Africa. 



Not many years ago impala ranged throughout all the wooded districts 

 of Bechuanaland and the Transvaal, and thence north to the Zambesi ; but 

 in the former place very few remain (there are said to be a few within 30 

 miles of Khama's town, Palachwe), and they are getting scarce even in the 

 Northern and Eastern Transvaal, where I remember them in troops of one to 

 two hundred. Even in the Matamiri bush, which the natives often speak 



1 The longest pair yet known, brought by Lord Delamere from East Africa, measure 30 inches over 

 the curve, z + inches in a straight line, 17J inches between the tips, and 6\ inches in circumference.— En. 



