The Eland 433 



There is much variety in the colouring of Livingstone's eland. The 

 following notes from my diary (i 888) refer to an old bull : — General body- 

 colour, dun ; cheeks, cream-colour ; down the nose, dark brown (almost 

 black) ; mane, brown ; ten thin white stripes from backbone to belly, 

 becoming indistinct towards tail ; a black bar 4 inches wide on hind side 

 of each fore-leg, above the knee-joint ; right underneath belly, almost 

 black ; tail, dun-colour, with black hairs at the end ; length of horns, 

 28 inches; breadth between horn-tips, 16 inches; a slight hump on the 

 back ; much dewlap. Some of the old bulls grow to an enormous size, 

 and their spiral horns attain a great thickness ; those of the female are 

 longer than the male's, but not nearly so massive. 



During the latter half of the dry season, when all grass has grown rank 

 and dry, and especially at the time of bush-fires, when there is no grass at 

 all, eland feed largely on leaves of different trees. To enable them to reach 

 these, they place their feet on the stems of young trees, much in the same 

 manner as goats do. 



The female is, as a rule, lighter coloured than the male, and young 

 cows are sometimes a reddish-fawn colour. The white stripes are most 

 clearly shown when young ; they grow more indistinct with age, but on 

 even the oldest bulls are always distinguishable. 



Elands are generally found in small parties — a bull, two or three cows and 

 their young. But in the West Nyasa high, open grass country (locally 

 known as " Vipsha ") I have frequently found old bulls living an apparently 

 solitary life ; I have also seen as many as twenty-five eland in one herd. 



Since, north of the Zambesi, tsetse fly prevents the taking of horses on 

 hunting expeditions, all shooting is done on foot. Eland are not fast, 

 and, although thoroughly disturbed and alarmed, can often be overtaken by 

 a good runner, as they are given to stopping in their flight to stand and 

 look back. They are very quiet and harmless beasts, even when wounded. 

 I have never seen a wounded eland make any attempt at offensive action. 



1 K 



