itant of regions with rather ample vegetation — such as reedy river-margins. 

 Indeed, its average environment and its disguising coloration are very much 

 like the zebra's. In the same class of 'secantly' striped antelopian costumes 

 is that of Livingstone's Eland, mentione4 a few pages back. This mag- 

 nificent great antelope has black marks on its fore legs, while its brown back 

 and sides, otherwise immaculate, are marked with five narrow vertical lines of 

 gleaming white, extending from the ridge of the back about two thirds of the 

 way to the middle line of the belly. These stripes, like those so much more 

 numerous and bold worn by the zebras — and even the Koodoo — are secantly 

 obliterative. They bring down, as it were, narrow slips of sky into the beast's 

 smooth contour, when he stands upon an eminence and silhouettes against 

 the distance — and thus they 'cut the contour up' and tend to obliterate it. 

 Again, under other conditions, these stripes carry the aspect of stray gleaming 

 grasses or reed-stems upward across the eland's earth-colored, obliteratively 

 shaded body. In all such views, and in others where the 'picturing' effect 

 is less pronounced, these stripes are definitely obliterative, always tending to 

 ' cut up ' the aspect of the eland's form. The Common Eland wholly lacks 

 these markings, as do many other African antelopes; and here we have an- 

 other case of notable costume-differences among animals with nearly or seem- 

 ingly quite the same habits and environments. No doubt, however, there 

 are really equivalent differences in the beasts' average surroundings, and in 

 their behavior, even though these have not yet been noticed by man. Thus 

 Livingstone's Eland may have a greater propensity to stand still in time of 

 danger, or may spend more time amidst tall grasses and reeds, than those of 

 its near relatives that lack the secant stripes. In the same way the more pro- 

 fuse and variegated white markings of the Harnessed Antelopes, containing 

 an admixture of white spots, are probably an indication that these beasts spend 

 an unusually large proportion of their time in and about wet swamps and 

 river borders, where flecks of water-shine — glints and stripes of sky-reflection 

 — are common features of the scene. The small, irregularly circular white 

 spots on the common Harnessed Antelope are indeed almost exactly like those 



142 



