260 ZAMBEZIAN ZOOLOGY 



Roan Antelope {Hippotragus equinus) is not 

 numerous. In the low forest country his presence 

 may often be detected by the destruction wrought 

 among the ant-hills of the blind white termite, 

 which he breaks up to get at the salty earth within. 

 In this way he spoils his appearance to some extent, 

 as it is extremely rare to find an old male with 

 horns undamaged by this form of burglary, or else 

 by fighting, for of all the African antelopes he is 

 said to be the most pugnacious whilst under the 

 influence of the tender passion, and cases are not 

 infrequent of fatal encounters among the young 

 males. The destruction to the horns, from one 

 cause or another, is not so general among the 

 females as among the females of the Sable, but 

 neither sex of the Roan is in any particular so 

 interesting or attractive as the former either in 

 appearance, colouring, or horn measurement. 



The Blue Wildebeeste or Brindled Gnu {Con- 

 nochcetes taurinus) occurs occasionally on the 

 southern outskirts of Shupanga. This curious type, 

 closely related to the Nyasaland Gnu (C. t.johnstom) 

 discovered by Mr. H. C. Macdonald in 1895, but 

 differing from the latter by the much greater 

 exuberance of its shaggy mane, and face and neck 

 hair, as well as by the absence of the inverted white 

 chevron on the nose, is completely absent from 

 Nyasaland, but reappears in East Africa endowed 

 with a white beard under the name of C. alboju- 

 batus. The long, weird skull of this curious animal 

 is not unlike that of the Hartebeeste, to which, by 

 some scientists, it is regarded as nearly related. It 

 may be, but this is apparently one of the many 



