452. Great and Small Game of Africa 



Horns over 20 inches in length in a straight line may be considered good, 

 24 to 27 inches very good. They have not so circular a sweep as a greater 

 koodoo's horn. The females are hornless ; they and the young males are of 

 a yellowish-brown colour, and the stripes on their skins do not appear to be 

 of so pure a white as the old bucks'. I have only seen them, however, on living 

 animals some yards off. The lesser koodoo is found in fair numbers along 

 the foot of the Golis range and in the thick bush that grows along the 

 wadys or watercourses that seam the maritime plain near the hills. I also 

 saw a good buck by himself on the plateau to the south of the Golis. This 

 animal was certainly 30 miles, if not more, from any water, which seems to 

 show that the lesser koodoo, like many other African antelopes, can do 

 without water. They are said to be common on the Webbi River. As 

 a rule, the lesser koodoo is found near water when the jungle is dense, 

 especially where there is a thick undergrowth of the aloe (Somali " hig "). 

 As one makes one's way through such a thicket, a loud bark close by and a 

 glimpse of striped hide and bushy tail proclaim the presence of one of these 

 animals. They appeared to me not to run very far, since I more than once 

 soon heard again the bark of one which I believed to be the same animal, 

 as I was tracking one already disturbed. They will let you approach within 

 a few yards of them in the thickets before they start off. It is necessary to 

 be alert and quick in firing, as you do not see them till they are off, and they 

 are out of sight at once. I never saw many together — a buck and a doe or 

 four or five does is the rule. I saw young fawns in November and December. 

 The Somali sometimes call the lesser koodoo " Godir," which is their name 

 for the greater koodoo. The longest horn mentioned in Ward's Records of 

 Big Game is one of ib\ inches in a straight line. Major Swayne mentions 

 one between 27 and 28 inches in Seventeen Trips through Somaliland. 



I. D. Inveraritv. 



