474 



Great and Small Game of Africa 



Owing to the fact that the situtunga lives in the midst of vast reed- 

 beds and papyrus swamps, and is therefore but seldom seen, very little is 

 known of its life-history. In 1879 I endeavoured to obtain some 

 specimens of these antelopes in the reed-beds of the Chobi, on the edge of 

 which I was camped for some time. I searched for them in a small canoe 

 which was paddled noiselessly by a single native, at early dawn and after 

 sunset, through the many small channels by which the vast reed-bed was 

 intersected. In some places, patches of dry reeds had been burnt oft', and 

 in such spots I always found tracks of situtungas numerous, where these 

 animals had been feeding on the young reeds springing from the boggy 

 ground. 



One morning I found a splendid old male lying dead. He had been 

 killed during the night, evidently by another male of his own species, 

 as he had a large wound in his side behind the ribs, which looked as 

 if it had been made by a horn-thrust. The head of this antelope I 

 preserved and still have in my collection. Apparently, however, the 

 situtungas never came out to feed in the open ground except during the 

 night after dark, always retiring into the thick reeds again before daylight. 

 I disturbed a few, as I passed close to them in the canoe, and heard them 

 splashing as they plunged through the water amongst the reeds and 

 papyrus, but I only actually saw one, a female, that was standing in water 

 that came half-way up her sides, in the midst of a bed of reeds, apparently 

 engaged in feeding on the young shoots that appeared just above the 

 surface of the water. When she saw me sitting in the front part of the 

 canoe she dashed away through the reeds in a series of plunges. The 

 situtunga which I found lying dead was a very fine old male. He was 

 very thick-set and heavily built, with a very large neck ; and as he lay he 

 appeared to me to be as nearly as possible the same size as a lechwe ram, 

 an animal with which I was just then very familiar. 



If my judgment was correct, a large male situtunga would stand about 



