THE GEMSBUCK AND ITS CONGENERS 
very similar to the gemsbuck of South-West Africa. Those found on the 
Laikipia plateau are met with on open grass downs, or amongst a 
scattered growth of thorn bushes. But in the neighbourhood of the Voi 
River, where I hunted for oryx callotis in 1903, the greater part of the country 
was covered with stunted forest, for the most part free from any under- 
growth, and intersected by numerous open glades. I one day met in that 
district with a single bull oryx in company with a herd of Coke’s harte- 
beests. As a rule, all species of oryx are difficult to approach, as they are 
very keen-sighted. When wounded, they should not be incautiously ap- 
proached, as they are apt to charge with great courage and determination. 
As a rule, the two species of East African oryx live in small herds, but 
both sometimes congregate together in very considerable numbers. In 
some parts of their range they are said to be entirely independent of water, 
but along the Northern Guaso Nyiro, where the climate is very hot, it 
appeared to me that the oryx were in the habit of drinking in the river. 
The flesh of all species of oryx is most excellent. When in high condition, 
they all develop a large lump of fat which adheres to the skin in the middle 
of the throat. 
There remains to be mentioned one more member of the oryx family, 
namely, the white oryx ( Oryx leucoryx) of the North African deserts. 
This beautiful animal, though much inferior in size to the gemsbuck, yet 
almost rivals that species in the length of its horns, which have been 
known to measure forty-four and a half inches.* The white oryx differs 
markedly from all other members of the genus to which it belongs, in that 
its horns are bent backwards in a very graceful curve instead of being 
perfectly straight or nearly so. Living as it has done for countless centuries 
in the full blaze of the sun on arid, treeless plains, this species has become 
bleached, the general colour of the body being nearly white and the mark- 
ings on the face and legs, which in other members of the oryx family are 
black, having faded to a pale brown. The colour of the neck, however, is 
reddish brown. Altogether, it would seem probable that more than one 
species of oryx had already been evolved from a common ancestor in 
pleistocene times, and that whilst the gemsbuck, the beisa and the fringe - 
eared oryx are descended from straight -horned ancestors which entered 
Africa from Asia, and spread southwards to the east of the Nile, the ances- 
tors of the white oryx — which is entirely confined to the deserts to the west 
*The longest measurement in Rowland Ward’s Records of Big Game is that of a head from Kordofan, which 
reaches 45 inches. 
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