The Inyala 46: 



Length of horn round curve 24 inches 



Straight line from tip to base of horn . . . 20 ,, 



Distance apart of horn-tips ..... 4.', 



Distance apart in widest place ..... a), 



This is but a moderate-sized head. Under the neck the hair is long ; 

 down the neck and all along the backbone to the tail is a ridge of long 

 hair ; on the rump the hair is exceptionally long. I once measured a 

 skin, the hair of which reached 9^ inches. 



Owing to the inyala being found within so restricted an area in British 

 Central Africa (about go miles by 30), few specimens have been obtained. 

 Several fair ones were, however, secured by officers on H.M. Zambesi 

 gunboats, near to Chiromo on the Shire River. They were not known to 

 exist in this part of Africa till 1 89 1 , when I saw the skin of one on the 

 floor of a planter's house at Blantyre, and sent it home to Dr. Sclater, who 

 at once pronounced it to be the inyala. 



From the description given by the late Captain Faulkner of an antelope 

 shot by him on the south shore of Lake Nyasa, Mr. Selous was recently 

 led to think that possibly the inyala might be found as far north as the lake. 

 Whether, however, it may have been found there or not at the time when 

 Captain Faulkner was in Nyasaland, after careful inquiries I have made, 

 and from my own experience of the locality, I think I can say positively 

 that at the present date the inyala is not found in Nyasaland north of the 

 1 5th degree of south latitude. 



It is most plentiful near to the streams which run into the Shire River, 

 on its right bank, between Chikwawa and Chiromo, where it frequents the 

 dense, jungly thickets, known by natives as " msitu," full of thorns. It only 

 leaves these in the early morning and in the evening to feed. During the 

 rains, as soon as the grass has reached a height of 5 or 6 feet, inyala are 

 found outside these thickets, but never far from them. 



Alfred Sharpe. 



