128 THE BRINDLED GNU 



when I come to describe him in his turn. The 

 blue wildebeeste is a heavy -looking, hairy -headed, 

 brindled creature, standing perhaps a little more 

 than 4 feet at the shoulder, but high on the 

 withers, whence the back slopes very sharply 

 down to the root of his tail. The horns, carried 

 by both sexes, though not unshapely, yet lack 

 the general appearance of antelope horns, con- 

 veying rather, at first sight, the supposition of 

 having belonged to some singular family of under- 

 sized buffaloes. 



Zambezia contains two different families of 

 wildebeeste, the first the type I have just im- 

 perfectly described, and the second, called for 

 inadequate reasons the " Nyasaland " Gnu, 

 found but sparsely in that British Protectorate, 

 but existing much more, numerously in the 

 centre of the Quelimane district and the rolling 

 country between Chiperoni Mountain and the 

 wide plains of Boror. The Nyasaland variety 

 was discovered by my old friend Mr. H. C. 

 Macdonald about the year 1896, who shot the 

 first specimen secured not far from Zomba. The 

 differences between the ordinary brindled and the 

 Nyasaland gnu are chiefly that whilst the first 

 named is, as described above, extremely hairy 

 about the head and neck, the latter, with the 

 exception of a somewhat lanky mane, possesses 

 but little in the way of hirsute embellishment of 

 an exuberant character. A further peculiarity 

 displayed by the Nyasaland variety is a rather 

 singular inverted white chevron upon the frontal 

 bone an inch or two below the eyes. Whether 



