Fringe-Eared Beisa 



19 1 



On the 22nd September I saw a small calf about a week old, the most 

 ungainly little beast to look at ; but when it came to trying to catch it, it 

 was more than a match for myself and a dozen men. Another cow I 

 killed was, I regret to say, heavy in calf, which shows that the O. beisa 

 breeds much earlier in the season than the O. callotis, and indeed than any 

 other antelope in East Africa. p j y ACKS0N 



The Fringe-Eared Beisa [Oryx callotis) 

 Swahili Name, Chiroa 



The " fringe-eared " oryx is not only confined to East Africa but its 

 range is very limited. How tar south it extends into German territory, 

 beyond the fact that it is found some 1 5 miles down the River Ruvu 

 below Arusha, I am unable to say ; but, in British territory, which is un- 

 doubtedly its principal habitat, it is found from the Anglo-German boundary 

 as far north as the Mto Kiboko, beyond which, up to the present, it has 

 not been identified. It is fairly plentiful in the Galla country, south of the 

 Tana River, and I have seen it within a mile of the sea at Merereni during 

 the rainy season in May 1885. Curious to say, it has never been found 

 anywhere on the Athi plains, though, farther south, it is fairly well dis- 

 tributed from Kilimanjaro, its headquarters, as far east as the open country 

 between Maungu and the River Voi, where I saw several fair-sized herds in 

 1888. In the Kilimanjaro district it used to be very plentiful, in fact one 

 of the commonest beasts, on the eastern shores of Lake Jipi, and in the 

 country lying between the north-east of the mountain and the Kiyulu hills ; 

 and, as I never heard of it having suffered from the ravages of rinderpest, it 

 is no doubt still plentiful in those places and others suitable to its habits. 



It is a shy, wary beast, and goes about in herds of six or eight up to 

 thirty or more. A single bull oryx, when it has been driven out of the 

 herd by a younger and stronger beast, is often seen with a herd of Gazella 



