328 Great and Small Game of Africa 



with it anywhere on Lake Rudolph. I suppose the country in these 

 equatorial regions is not so congenial to its habits as the parts of South- 

 Eastern Africa I have in my mind, where it used to be so wonderfully 

 plentiful ; it certainly has not been killed off here, as it may probably have 

 been, for all I know, by this time there. Its haunts in Central Africa, are, 

 for the most part, in almost untrodden wilds, where there is no one to 

 interfere with it ; and therefore it is not likely that it was ever more 

 plentiful than it is at the present day. It is pretty common in the 

 neighbourhood of the Gwaso Nyiro River, north of Mount Kenia, and it 

 was there that I obtained my finest specimen, the dimensions of which 

 are — length of horns (straight) = 23 inches ; ditto (on front curve) 

 = 28 inches; tip to tip = 22 J inches; circumference = 5f inches. The 

 heads in that district are commonly very fine, and I have no doubt a better 

 than the above might easily be obtained. 1 The impalas of this part of 

 Africa have generally much wider horns than those of the south ; and this 

 is, so far as I am aware, the only respect in which they differ from their 

 southern brothers. The does are hornless. 



Their colour often matches so well with some tree-stems or the red 

 ant-heaps common in some parts that it is easy for an unpractised eye to 

 overlook these antelopes when standing motionless in the bush. But I 

 have often wondered whether this " protective colouring " in such animals 

 is really of any practical value to them ; for no experienced hunter is 

 deceived by it. As a matter of fact I have noticed that, although one may 

 at first sight often mistake a stump for a buck, the converse error is rarely 

 if ever fallen into. Seen end- on from behind, a herd of them, when 

 huddled together, is given such a different appearance by the black stripes 

 down the thighs that at the first glance one may suppose he has come 

 across some new striped antelope. 



hcui brought homo. 



