460 Great and Small Game of Africa 



below, tipped with black." No description of an adult female inyala could 

 be more accurate than this. The average length of inyala horns is about 

 22 inches in a straight line from point to base, and 25 or 26 inches when 

 measured along the front curve, but they have been known to attain to a 

 length of over 29 inches on the curve. Owing to the protection which 

 has been afforded them of late years by the Government in Zululand, 

 inyalas have recently increased in that territory, but in Amatongaland, and 

 everywhere else in South- East Africa where these antelopes exist, they 

 are being very rapidly exterminated by the natives ; and as the rinderpest 

 has also lately worked sad havoc amongst them, especially in Zululand, it 

 is quite certain that this beautiful species will become very rare, if not 

 actually extinct, in the coming century. There are at present two good 

 mounted specimens of the inyala — male and female — in the Mammalia 

 Gallery of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, as well as 

 several skulls and pairs of horns. F. C. Selous. 



In Nyasaland 



Native Name, Bo 



The inyala (Tragelaphus nngasi) is rare in British Central Africa. 

 The only district in which it has yet been found is that bordering on the 

 Shire River, from Port Herald up to the Murchison Cataracts. It keeps 

 mostly to dense, thorny thickets, and is very difficult to find. The horns are 

 rather like those of the bushbuck, but larger and more spiral ; something, 

 in fact, between those of a koodoo and a bushbuck. It is a beautiful and 

 graceful antelope. Sir Harry Johnston thus describes the colouring : "The 

 female a deep chestnut, with narrow stripes and spots in pure white, and 

 a black line along the middle of the back from the neck to the base of the 

 tail ; the male purplish-gray with white markings." The measurements of 

 the only inyala head I have are as follows : — 



