THE GEMSBUCK AND ITS CONGENERS 
able to accomplish on both occasions as I was riding very fast horses. 
Owing to the uninviting character of the parched and waterless wastes in 
which the gemsbuck lives and thrives, and their unsuitability for settlement 
by either Europeans or natives, this beautiful species of antelope is, I 
think, likely to survive for a long time to come in South-West Africa, even 
without any special protection. 
The nearest congeners of the gemsbuck are the two species of oryx 
inhabiting the more arid regions of North-East Africa. Of these the oryx 
beisa is very similar in appearance to the gemsbuck, though it is a good 
deal smaller, and lacks the black markings over the rump and on the 
lower part of the thighs which distinguish that species. The horns, too, of 
the beisa are a good deal shorter on the average than in the gemsbuck, 
and usually grow almost parallel to one another from base to point. The 
ears, also, in the beisa oryx are narrower than in the true gemsbuck. The 
second East African species of oryx is the oryx callotis, which is an animal 
of about the same size as the beisa, but of a much redder coloration, and 
in which the ears are long and tufted as in the roan antelope. The range of 
the beisa oryx extends from the neighbourhood of Suakim on the Red Sea, 
through Somaliland and Abyssinia, as far as the Tana River, in British 
East Africa, and it is also plentiful to the east of Lake Rudolph and along 
the northern Guaso Nyiro River as far south as the Laikipia plateau. 
South of the Tana River the range of the beisa does not extend, its place 
being taken by the fringe -eared oryx, which ranges southwards into 
German East Africa. 
In both oryx beisa and oryx callotis the horns are, on the average, very 
inferior to those of the South African gemsbuck, being not only much 
shorter, but almost always lacking the spread which is usual in the latter. 
In both the East African species of oryx, however, the horns of the bulls 
attain to as great a length as in the cows. The longest horn measurement 
for an oryx beisa given in the last edition of Rowland Ward’s “Records of 
Big Game ” is thirty-nine inches. The animal which bore these horns was 
a female, but the measurements of two pairs of bull horns are given as 
thirty -eight inches. The longest recorded pair of horns of oryx callotis — 
that of a bull — is given as thirty-three and a half inches, the next longest 
being that of a cow, which is thirty-three and a quarter inches in length. 
In addition to the two perfectly distinct forms of oryx which are found in 
East Africa, a third sub-species or local race, which appears to be inter- 
mediate between the two, inhabits a portion of the Laikipia plateau to the 
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