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been common throughout the Colony, and is described by Harris as 
follows :—* This species resides either in pairs or in very small families along 
the margins of springs and swampy ground abounding in flags and rushes, 
or among the sedges that choke the channel of desiccated torrents, which 
flow only during the winter season. Specimens occurred throughout our 
route, chiefly to the eastward of the Colony, and in the tropical streams 
‘*mongst reeds and willows that o’erhang the flood’; but owing to the shy 
and secluded habits of the animal, it was not often seen, nor is it in fact 
anywhere so common as on the western coast, where the attraction of water— 
a rare element in those barren regions—sometimes causes it to congregate in 
the open plain.” 
Twenty years later, in 1861, Mr. Layard states that the Reedbuck was 
hardly then to be met with within the Colony! It is, however, as we are 
informed by Mr. W. L. Sclater, still to be found even up to the present day, 
though rarely, on some places on the east coast (Bathurst and Komgha), and 
in considerable numbers in the adjoining countries. Writing in 1881, 
Mr. Selous tells us that a few were then still to be found in the Transvaal, 
and that in Matabeleland and Mashonaland, on both slopes of the water- 
shed, it was very common along the banks of the rivers. On the Manica 
plateau north of the Zambesi, Mr. Selous found Reedbucks particularly 
abundant, and had seen as many as eight at one time feeding in close 
proximity one to another. He remarks, however, that they are animals 
that go in pairs, and in this particular differ altogether from the various 
Waterbucks, which consort together in herds of not more than one male to 
ten females. 
Messrs. Nicolls and Eglington, in their ‘Sportsman in South Africa,’ the 
most recent authority on this subject, give us the following account of the 
present distribution of the Reedbuck and of its habits:—‘‘It is now 
extremely rare to meet with this species in the Transvaal, except along some 
of the rivers in the north-eastern districts, and in Bechuanaland it is virtually 
extinct, although five years ago it was fairly common in the reeds of the 
Molopo, close to the site of the present town of Mafeking. In portions of 
the British Protectorate bordering the Crocodile River, and along its north- 
western tributaries, the Reedbuck may still occasionally be met with, but 
nowhere there in plenty. In the low country on the east coast about the 
Pungwe and Sabi Rivers it is extremely numerous. On those rivers of 
