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white. Face above chestnut-red, sides of face and eye-stripe white. Ears 
long (about 8 inches), pointed, rufous at back, white inside; line round nose 
and chin white. Hairs on neck long and harsh. Feet below knees blackish 
brown, passing into black towards the hoofs; tail above like the back, other- 
wise whitish, about 12 inches long, tuft of hairs beyond 4 inches. 
Female similar but without horns ; teats four (Riippell). 
Hab. Western Abyssinia, Sennaar, Kordofan, and the Nile valley, south to 
Uganda and British and German East Africa. 
Amongst the many zoological discoveries made by the great naturalist and 
traveller Dr. Edward Riippell in Abyssinia and the surrounding lands about 
sixty years ago was the present species of Antelope, which he proposed to 
call “‘defassa” from its Amharic name. Riippell published a figure and 
description of it in a work which he called ‘ Neue Wirbelthiere zu der Fauna 
von Abyssinien gehorig,’ and dedicated to the Senate of his native State, the 
Free City of Frankfort-on-the-Main. After an excellent description of both 
sexes of Antilope defassa, Riippell tells us that it lives in the grassy valleys 
of Western Abyssinia, round the Lake of Dembea, where it is generally met 
with in small families of from four to six individuals. Amongst these there 
is never more than one wholly adult male. What it prefers for food are the 
leaves and seed-stalks of Holcus sorghum besides grasses of every sort. Its gait 
is rather unwieldy, but it is not very timid. ‘This Antelope, Dr. Riippell 
continues, is also met with in Sennaar and Kordofan, where its common 
name is “ Bura”; skins from these districts examined by him in Cairo were 
recognized as being similar to the Abyssinian “ Defassa.” The Abyssinians 
do not often hunt this species, because so few of them care to eat meat, 
and its hide is of little value. It is, however, said to be the habitual food of 
the lions of the district that it inhabits. Riippell’s specimens of both sexes 
are now in the Senckenbergian Museum at Frankfort, where Sclater has 
examined them. 
Another great explorer of Eastern Africa, Th. v. Heuglin, met with this 
Antelope in the bushy and woody valleys of the Qualabat and Mareb, and 
thence eastwards to where the mountain-range falls off into the lowlands. 
He found it generally less difficult to approach than other Antelopes, and 
had many opportunities of shooting it at morning and evening amongst the 
high grasses that border the woods. 
