THE LELWEL HARTEBEEST 
individuals, one big bull with each herd. Occasionally I saw a single 
bull, and once two old bulls together. Once I saw an old bull hartebeest 
consorting together with a bull tiang, and at another time I found a young 
bull tiang living with a herd of some fifteen hartebeests. 
In habits I found the Lelwel hartebeests of the district of the Bahr-el- 
Ghazal, where I met with them, far more like those of the West African 
hartebeest — as described by sportsmen familiar with the latter species — 
than those of the Jackson’s hartebeests of British East Africa, which I 
understand are considered by naturalists to be merely a local race of 
Bubalis Lelwel ; for whereas I found Jackson’s hartebeests most plentiful 
on the bare open grass plains of the Gwas N’Gishu plateau, though they 
also inhabited the open bush of the surrounding districts, the hartebeests 
I met with in the Bahr-el-Ghazal were always in forest country, and I never 
happened to see any in open ground. All that I saw were alert and watchful 
and very keen-sighted. On the Gwas N’gishu plateau, where I saw 
thousands of Jackson’s hartebeests ( Bubalis Lelwel Jacksoni) in 1910, they 
were singularly tame, though the Topi antelopes inhabiting the same 
district were excessively wild. In this district the horns of Jackson’s 
hartebeests grow very long, not uncommonly exceeding 25 in. in length. 
Here, too, they run in large herds of from fifty to a hundred individuals, 
and in any such herd there will be several big bulls. Like all hartebeests, 
those of the Gwas N’gishu plateau were fond of climbing on to the large 
antheaps with which the country is dotted. This they do primarily, I 
think, for the sake of the sweetness of the grass which grows on soil 
which has been worked by ants, for if a waggon be outspanned amongst 
such large antheaps, every bullock will soon be seen on the top of one or 
other of them, evidently revelling in the sweet grass; but when they have 
finished feeding, hartebeests will stand sometimes for a long time on such 
antheaps, as they fully realize the advantages such a position gives them 
in guarding against the approach of enemies. 
K 
65 
