THE BONGO 
BOOCERCUS EURYCEROS 
B ONGO is the name given by a tribe of West African natives 
(the Fantis) to an antelope whose habitat was until quite 
recently supposed to be entirely confined to the forest 
^regions of equatorial West Africa, extending from the Gaboon 
"to Liberia. 
After the opening up of British East Africa, however, the 
skulls and horns of what was evidently the same or a very nearly allied 
species of forest antelope were from time to time seen by travellers and 
hunters in the encampments of the Wandorobo, and we now know that 
this Eastern race of the Bongo ( B . euryceros isaaci) is an inhabitant of all 
the great forest tracts on the highlands of that part of Africa. Living as it 
does in the densest parts of the forest, and never coming out into open 
ground, the bongo has only been seen alive by very few European sports- 
men; but it seems to be fairly numerous in the high forests between Nairobi 
and Lake Naivasha, on the Aberdare range, on the Mau plateau, in all the 
forests which surround the Gwas N’gishu plateau, as well as on the slopes 
of Mount Kenia and Mount Elgon. 
The bongo is a large, heavily built antelope, standing about four feet at 
the shoulder. In both sexes the colour of the body is a rich dark chestnut- 
red, banded on either side with from ten to fourteen pure white stripes. 
The ears are large and round, as in all forest antelopes, and both sexes 
carry horns. These approximate in shape somewhat to those of the 
inyala, but are very much more massive. 
The bongo shows certain affinities to the eland, especially to the Derbian 
eland. Indeed, an American naturalist has affirmed that there is less 
difference between the skull of the East African bongo and that of the 
Derbian eland than there is between the skull of the latter animal and that 
of the common eland. The tail, too, is long and tufted, just as it is in all the 
species of elands, and, as is the case with those antelopes, both the male 
and the female bongo carry horns. 
Living as they do in dense forests, bongo antelopes are mainly browsers, 
but they are also said to be very fond of the pith of certain rotten trees, 
whilst Captain C. H. Stigand, one of the few Europeans who has actually 
shot one of these animals, says that the old males will sometimes uproot 
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