THE ANTELOPES 233 
there are two or three cheek-spots, as well as an arrow-shaped white mark across the nose, 
below the eyes. In the male there is a slight mane on the back of the neck, and a fringe 
of long white and blackish-brown hair intermixed, extending from the throat to the chest. The 
ears are very large and rounded, and the male is adorned with magnificent spiral horns, which 
have been known to attain a length of 48 inches in a straight line from base to tip, and 
64 inches over the curve. 
The greater kudu once had a very wide range, which extended from the central portions 
of the Cape Colony to Angola on the west, and on the east throughout East Africa up to 
Abyssinia; but, with the single exception of the buffalo, no species of wild animal suffered 
more from the terrible scourge of rinderpest which recently swept over the continent than 
this lordly antelope, and it has almost ceased to exist in many districts of South and South 
Central Africa, where up to 1896 it was still very numerous. 
The greater kudu is a bush-loving antelope, and very partial to wooded hills, though it is 
also plentiful in the neighbourhood of rivers which flow through level tracts of country covered 
with forest and bush. In my own experience it is never found at any great distance from 
water. It eats leaves and wild fruits as well as grass, and lives in small herds or families, 
never, I believe, congregating in large numbers. In Southern Africa, at any rate, it was always 
exceptional to see more than twenty greater kudus together, and I have never seen more than 
thirty. At certain seasons of the year the males leave the females, and live alone or several 
together. I once saw nine magnificently horned kudus standing on the bank of the Chobi, and 
I have often seen four or five males 
of this species consorting together, [0 
As a rule the greater kudu is met | 
with in hilly country or in bush so” 
dense that a horse cannot gallop 
through it at full speed; but if met 
with in open ground, a good horse 
can overtake an old male without 
much difficulty. The females are 
much lighter and faster and cannot 
be overtaken in any kind of ground. 
The greater kudu is one of the | 
most timid and inoffensive of animals, 
and when attacked by dogs will not 
make the slightest attempt to defend 
itself either with its horns or by 
kicking. 
The LrEsseER Kunbu in general 
colour nearly resembles its larger 
relative, but is much smaller, the 
males only standing about 4o inches 
at the withers, and it lacks the long 
fringe of hair under the throat. 
The white stripes on the body and 
hindquarters are, however, more 
numerous — from eleven to fourteen ; 
and the horns, which are only present 
in the males, are less divergent, and 
with the spiral curvature much closer care ETHER 
than in the greater kudu. MALE KUDU 
The lesser kudu is an inhab- A kudu bull stands about 5 feet or a little more at the withers, being in size onig 
itant of Somaliland and the maritime inferior to the eland. The horns form a corkscrew-like sptra’ 
[Cape ‘Town 
