THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
hartebeest in its horn growth. I met with pure Jackson’s hartebeests not 
far from Lake Nakuru, but I did not see any Coke’s hartebeests anywhere 
to the west of Lake Naivasha, and I therefore inclined to the view that the 
majority of the hartebeests I saw in the Nakuru district represented a 
pure race — which I thought was identical with Neumann’s hartebeest — 
which had hybridized to a certain extent with Jackson’s hartebeest. I 
have, however, lately examined a series of hartebeests’ skulls from Lake 
Nakuru in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, collected by 
Captain B. Meinertshagen, and another equally interesting series collected 
on the Gil-gil River by Mr C. S. Betton, and I now find it impossible to 
doubt that both Jackson’s and Coke’s hartebeests range into these 
localities, and have there either severally crossed with a local species 
(Bubalis nakurce) or have hybridized amongst themselves, and so formed a 
new race, in which the horn growth in certain individuals shows a strong 
resemblance to that of Jackson’s hartebeest and with others inclines just 
as strongly to the Coke type. In the majority of the hartebeests, however, 
found near Lake Nakuru there is a certain uniformity of type which is 
about intermediate between the two last mentioned species. How the 
question as to whether the Nakuru hartebeests are all hybrids, or belong 
primarily to a distinct race, which has hybridized on the one side with 
Jackson’s and on the other with Coke’s hartebeests, can ever be definitely 
settled I do not know, unless calves of both Jackson’s and Coke’s harte- 
beests are caught and reared, and then allowed to intermingle on an 
enclosed piece of land in British East Africa. The result of such an 
experiment would, I think, be most interesting. 
Where I met with the Nakuru hartebeests there were two or three small 
herds frequenting the open plains lying between Lakes Nakuru and 
Elmenteita, and a large herd of forty or fifty, which was always to be 
found amongst the groves of large mimosa trees which skirted Lake 
Nakuru near the mouth of the Enderrit River. In size, colour and general 
appearance, they appeared to me to more nearly resemble Jackson’s than 
Coke’s hartebeests. However, Captain Meinertshagen’s very careful 
investigations have clearly established the fact that in weight and size 
they are intermediate between those two species, which is a strong 
argument in favour of their all being hybrids. When I met with them 
they had not been much disturbed and were not very wild. In general 
habits they appeared to me to differ in no way from other species of 
hartebeests. 
74 
