The Situtunga 471 



beds of the larger rivers in the interior of South Africa. It used to be 

 found in the reed-beds of the Upper Botletlic River, Lake Ngami, the 

 Okavango, the Tamalakan, the Mahahi, the Machabi, the Chohi or 

 Ouando, and the Zambesi to the north of its junction with the latter river. 

 When travelling north of the Zambesi in 1 877-78 I learned from the 

 natives that the situtunga or some nearly allied species of antelope existed 

 in the swamps of the Lukanga River, a tributary of the Kafukwe. From 

 the descriptions given me, this animal appeared to be in every way 

 identical with the situtunga found in the swamps of the Chobi. The 

 local name for it was n'zobe. These swamps of the Lukanga are distant 

 some 1 50 miles to the south-west of Lake Bengweolo, where Dr. Living- 

 stone found that an animal identical with or very nearly allied to the 

 situtunga was known to the natives by the name of n'zoe. Though the 

 situtunga of the Chobi appears to be nearly allied both to Tragelaphus 

 gratus, of Western Equatorial Africa, on the one hand, and to Tragelaphus 

 spekei, the type of which species was originally discovered by Captain Speke 

 on a small lake near the Victoria Nyanza in the East Equatorial African 

 region, on the other, it differs in several respects from both these forms. 

 Probably some form of situtunga is found all over Central Africa, wherever 

 there are large swamps and reed-beds, and it may ultimately prove that 

 the southern species is connected with Tragelaphus gratus and also with 

 Speke's animal, and these two forms with one another, by many inter- 

 mediate links which will eventually make it difficult to say whether 

 the various forms of tragelaphine long-hoofed water antelopes found in 

 different parts of Africa are true species, or only local races of one species. 

 According to Mr. Walter Rothschild, the female and young both of 

 Tragelaphus gratus and the tragelaphine antelope discovered by Captain 

 Speke in East Equatorial Africa are bright red in ground-colour. In the 

 situtunga the adult female is grayish brown, exactly the same colour as 

 the adult male, whilst the young animals are very dark bluish black — 



