THE ELANDS 
the leaves of which they had been feeding. They also grazed to a certain 
extent, and picked up the ripe fruits which had dropped from the “ Lulu ” 
trees. In order to get at the leaves of certain trees, this species of eland 
will break off quite large branches as thick as a man’s wrist. This they 
probably do by getting a branch between their horns and then wrenching 
it off by a turn of the head. Possibly it is to this habit, continued for a very 
long period of time, that the great development of the horns in the Derbian 
eland is due. 
In both the Senegambian and Sudan races into which this species has 
been divided, though the differences between the two seem to be very 
slight, the horns of the males attain to a length of over forty inches. They 
usually have a wider spread, and near the base are more sharply twisted, 
especially so in the females, than is the case with any of the races of the 
narrow-eared elands. Contrary to the general belief, the horns of the 
giant eland are not more massive than those of the elands found both in 
Southern and Northern Rhodesia, as will at once be realized by a com- 
parison of the measurements given in the latest edition of Rowland Ward’s 
“ Records of Big Game ” of the finest known horns of all species of elands. 
The length and spread of the horns in the Derbian eland is, however, never 
approached by the finest examples of any other species of the genus. 
Between the great-horned, round-eared elands of North-West Africa 
and the smaller-horned, narrow-eared elands whose range extends or 
did once extend from the Cape to the great equatorial forests on the west 
and as far north as the Tana River on the east, as well as throughout 
Central Africa east of the Nile, there is no connecting link. In the neigh- 
bourhood of Gondokoro and Mongalla the two species come very near 
together, narrow-eared elands sometimes visiting the eastern bank of the 
Nile in that district, whilst Derbian elands must sometimes come very 
close to them on the western bank of the river in the northern part of the 
Lado Enclave. But the two species never meet, though only separated 
to-day by the thin line of the impassable Nile, just as they have been for 
thousands of years in the past. 
From the sportsman’s point of view all the local races into which the 
narrow-eared elands have been divided may be ignored, for as far as their 
general habits and appearance are concerned, they may be looked upon as 
belonging to one and the same species, and I shall therefore speak of them 
collectively as common elands. 
The common eland is an inhabitant both of open grass plains and bush 
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